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Why do I need to be here?

Really, I have nothing to give, nothing to share.

I can listen, but only for so long. I can read, but my mind wanders. Where? I don’t know. To the lump in my throat. To the panicky heart. Everything comes back to me. I am selfish.

I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to live. Not like this.

I am petulant. If I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything. No, that’s not true. Maybe it’s fear that since it seems I can’t have this, I won’t be able to have anything.

When Mom died, I was there. It was just quiet, her rasp getting quieter, our silent weeping, our hands on her, our words, “it’s okay to go now.” I learned what it was to physically let go, to physically grieve. A huge hole in my chest, the longing to have her arms around me.

I wasn’t there when my boys died. I carried one, unaware. With no sacred thought. One day he was just gone, gone for days.

When I let go of the other, there was only pain. Sensations. Like a dream. I didn’t know what was his body, what the doctors or nurses said or did. Or how long his little heart beat outside my womb, briefly. With me, unaware.

There was no peace. No dignity. For any of us.

My chest empty and black. A huge hole. My uterus empty and sore.

Afterward, at the hospital they gave us stuffed teddy bears. One big, one small. We wondered if it was because our boys, one bigger and one smaller, or if it was supposed to be mother child.

I absently held the larger. Toyed with its ear, rubbed the ribbon between my fingers. It sits now, in C's office, in the bag we took home from the hospital, with their hats and blankets. I can’t bear to get it out. Though my arms long for my baby, my babies, to hold.

*****
I can’t live like this. I eat, out of habit. I work, because I am paid to. After half an hour TV, DVD, I just don't connect.

I play games on the computer. Puzzle games. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t really care. I read blogs. They make me laugh, they make me smile. They make me remember. They give me hope that there is life after this. That the pain that courses through me, fades, just enough to keep going. To find another life after this.