What do you say to someone who has lost a child? I found myself at a loss for words last night while talking to a friend that has lost her daughter.
Her daughter was around 24/25 and tried to commit suicide about two years ago. I won’t go into detail but she did not succeed. She ended up in a coma for a while, feeding tubes, balled into the fetal position, the whole nine yards. She was like this for about a year before she passed away.
Her mom was at the hospital almost every day for hours on end then coming home dealing with an angry teenage daughter who didn’t understand why her sister would do something like that. It was a very, very hard time for their family.
At this time I was a completely shitty friend. I was not there for my friend when she needed me, or at least that’s the way I feel. We had a falling out over stupid shit and didn’t talk at all for a while a few years before all of this happened. We eventually made our peace with one another but it was never the same. The closeness wasn’t there like it was.
When her daughter was in the hospital, we didn’t talk much, mainly because she was so busy going back and forth to visit and when she was home I felt like an intruder. I felt like she needed that time to reconnect with her family still at home.
I look back now and wish I had done things differently. I wish I had been more of a friend to her during that whole time. I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t there but I can change the fact that I am there now. Maybe too late but I don’t think so. She is still grieving and if I can I will help her any way that I can.
This brings me to last night. We were talking and she has a picture of her daughter up on a mirror in their dining room. She was telling me that she kisses her every morning and talks to her and even yells at her.
We’ve talked about her before but it wasn’t in the detail that it was last night. She talked about the good times, the bad times the even low as low can get times. I did not know until last night that she was going to attempt suicide herself. A friend, thank God, stopped that.
Anyway, we were talking about the daughter and loss and the memorial service. Pretty much everything I had missed by not being there at the time of all of this. She showed me pictures of her daughter when she was in the hospital. Not easy pictures to look at I can tell ya but I did. I had to make myself look. For her, not for me. I think that helped my friend in some strange way that I don’t understand.
She was talking about the songs that she had picked out for the service and was wondering if she made a good choice in the music; so she played the CD for me. While listening, we hugged and cried and I told her she made all the right song choices in my opinion.
The whole time I’m listening to the music, I’m doing some SERIOUS mental ass kicking of myself for doing this with her so late (I didn’t say TOO late because I really don’t think it’s TOO late).
I cannot even begin to imagine losing one of my kids and dealing with what she has dealt with in the past couple of years. My brain won’t even wrap around that concept. There’s no way I can understand her pain and loss. I can’t lie to her and say I do. The only thing I can do is be there when she needs to talk, cry, laugh, get angry or whatever the case may be.
A firefighter is working on the engine outside the station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red wagon with little ladders hung off the sides and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle. The girl is wearing a firefighter's helmet.
The wagon is being pulled by her dog and her cat.
The firefighter walks over to take a closer look.
"That sure is a nice fire truck," the firefighter says with admiration.
"Thanks," the girl says.
The firefighter takes a closer look and notices the girl has tied her wagon to the dog's collar and the cat's testicles.
"Little Partner", the firefighter says, "I don't want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar, I think you could go faster."
The little girl replies thoughtfully, "You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a siren."
