I
see a picture of the person I love most in the world as a child and I want to
love somebody just like him, just like that, the way his parents loved him, to
raise somebody to be just as good and kind and solid a person as he is.
I
think of everything my parents ever taught me, ever did for me, ever gave me,
ever gave up for me, and my love and gratitude for them make me want to love
somebody just like they loved me, so I can honor the privilege of being their
child.
***
Multiple
times, in the course of many doctor appointments, we answered this question:
“Is it a wanted pregnancy?”
To
simply say, as we did, “Yes” – it was never enough. To scream it endlessly
would have been never enough.
***
Apparently
(thanks Google!) it was a certain Rabbi Hyman Schachtel who, in 1954, stated:
“Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have” – a
proposition which apparently doesn’t quite stand up to scientific scrutiny. Even assuming it did, how can one be happy without having something that is not
merely wanted, in the basest sense of the word, but that is intensely and
viscerally desired?
***
Yes,
this was a wanted pregnancy. Yes, I want; yes, we want. But the word "want"
is so completely insufficient to describe the longing behind this pure human desire
that it’s almost laughable.
This is an amazingly lovely post. I have it bookmarked and come back to it again and again. I lost my viscerally wanted baby at 13 weeks, and you capture beautifully so much of what I have felt over the last year. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI am so sorry for your loss; what incredible pain that I wish nobody had to know. And thank you, for your kind words - I'm glad you could find something here that speaks to you. I know how important that was (and still is) to me.
DeleteTake good care.