These questions are starting to depress me...I guess because I totally focused on someone I needed to forgive when I posted yesterday and breezed over the fact that some day I want to write a book.  Today's question has me feeling like someone punched me in the chest, though.

The one thing I hope that I never have to do is bury one of my children.

I personally know/knew 4 women who have had to do this.  I've read so many heartbreaking stories on the internet and on blogs.  I can't imagine how difficult it is and I know why these amazingly strong women find the strength to get through it but I don't know where they find it.

The women I know/knew are all amazing in their own way.  They are/were all very different and lost their children at different ages.  One was a newborn...one was in 4th grade...one was a young adult...and one was a grown man with a family of his own.  I think about all 4 of those situations and can't imagine how difficult they would be.  I can't imagine how it changes your life.  I can't imagine the loss that you feel when your life is suppose to go "back to normal" - as if anything would feel "normal" again.

I will say that one of the women I knew who went through this wasn't able to handle it.  I never got the full story but there were a lot of whispered rumors about overdosing on pills and alcohol.  She is now buried next to her son.  As much as I would like to say that I wouldn't let it come to that if it happened to me, I just don't know.  There is no way to know unless you go through it...and it's something I hope I never have to do.

Another one of the women was my Great-Grandmother.  Her son, Sam, died before I was born.  I've seen pictures of him and had heard stories about him from my Great-Grandmother and my Grandmother.  I never really saw my Great-Grandmother get upset about it...until one day in church.  During an emotional service for Good Friday, she cried and said that she missed him.  I was probably around 10.  I never saw her cry about it other than then - but I remember it very clearly.

The other two women are both still living amazing lives.  They read my blog on occasion, so I guess I would like them to know how amazing I think they are and how I really do admire them for touching so many other lives in such a positive way.  I didn't know either of them when they lost their child - but I feel like I knew their children from the way they talk about them.  I pray for them everyday - but if they need the prayers, they don't let it show often.  I can't imagine going through what they went through but I do know that it is possible to find the strength to get through it and continue to live and love and remember because they do it every day.

To all of you who have miscarried or lost a baby in utero, I can't imagine how difficult that is, either.  I would think that the toughest part of that would be that there are people who wouldn't consider that a loss - when it really is a loss.  I've heard many people say that it isn't as bad as losing a child . . .  I think it is completely insensitive to downplay it like that.  It is a loss and it is a child.

(Guess that clues you in on how I feel about the Pro-Life/Abortion issue.)