It's a sick, sick world

My son just turned four years old last Thursday. He is beautiful and engaging and so smart. But this weekend I was reminded of what a sick world we live in. I was reminded that there are unscrupulous people out there who will do anything, and I do mean anything for a breath of attention from someone else. 

When I first knew I was pregnant back in 2008, I joined the online community at Whattoexpect.com, commonly known as WTE. I found my homeboard for my due date, March 2009, and settled in to the daily questions of everything from "Am I having a miscarriage?" to "Is that a kick or gas?" Sadly, we did lose a few to miscarriages or arguments - we were a board of hormonal, pregnant women, there were arguments. But by the end of the forty weeks, we'd formed a fairly tight group. 

I will never forget the day it happened. One of the ladies, one of my friends, had felt her stomach tighten, and with that, felt her baby boy moving less and less until she didnt feel him. She tried resting after drinking juice or really cold liquids but nothing worked. So she came in to see the doctor and found out that her baby had died. We were all shocked. When you get to the end, you feel like,"Ok, I've made it, I can breathe now." But as we sadly learned, that it was not the end. Tragedy can and does strike. In the United States, it occurs in 1 out of 115 births. The pain is unmeasurable and intense. 

Our friend stayed in touch with us and shared the beautiful pictures that the hospital had arranged to take of her son. While I dont know if they're something I'd have done, I have to admit they're beautiful. You can see the sadness on the faces of family and the boy was so peaceful and beautiful. The pictures stab at a place in the heart so dark and deep, the place where you put things you dont want to talk about happening to you as if talking about it will jinx you. It is those pictures that are at the heart of my blog today.

My son just turned four, I just mentioned that earlier. The anniversary of her son's death was also last week. Imagine her pain, her horror at finding out that not one, but at least two women have used the picture of her son that she placed on Facebook to get attention for themselves. One woman used the picture to show other women in a Grief and Loss page on Facebook to get these women to give her love and support over the loss of her son. Another woman used that same picture to create an entire memorial web page for the loss of her son, pretending that our friend's son was hers. 

What is wrong with people? Are their lives so empty that they must do this to get attention? Do they get a twinge of sick enjoyment out of hurting other people? Do they get off on the "oh you poor woman, how sad for you"? It just makes me angry. It makes me want to find them and slap them. Instead, I used the technical age to help my friend. She was afraid that with people posting on the website that the woman was a fraud that she'd shut down the site before the authorities could be alerted. So I saved both the website and the source code of the website for her. But my heart still hurts for her.

It used to be enough to tell people to be careful of what they posted online in case they didnt want it seen. Now you'll have to warn people not to post pictures that other people may steal as their own. 

Maybe God Meant...

"Maybe this is God's way of saying I warned you with the last now this is your final warning."

"Maybe God means for them to stop"

"Maybe God's trying to tell them something..."

This week, Michelle Duggar and her family lost a loved one. She and her husband Jim were at their 20week ultrasound, typically called an anatomy scan when they were told that their baby had died and a heartbeat could no longer be found. 20 weeks into pregnancy, half way. But she'd probably been feeling the kicks for at least 2-4 weeks already. She, like any pregnant woman, had been talking to the baby as she stroked her stomach and I'm sure her husband and many of her 19 children were doing the same. How heart-breaking that must be.

People will be cynical and people will be harsh but when I read those comments I'm immediately taken back to when my husband and I were telling our family that we wouldn't be able to have children without IVF or something like that. Someone told us, trying to comfort us, that maybe that just meant that God didn't mean for us to be parents. I remember those words almost every day when I watch my son - who was conceived, miraculously, without any help from modern medicine. Who are we to even begin to try and guess what God meant or what God is "trying to tell" someone else.

Who are these people hurting? The Duggars? They made the decision, when they miscarried a baby because Michelle was taking birth control and didn't know she was pregnant, that they would not prevent pregnancy and let God decide when they would get pregnant. Did they take it to an extreme with 19? Um, probably. It would be for me, but I'm not them. They've raised those kids without government assistance - LONG before the TV show was around to help pay for things. They own businesses and manage their own bills and live a comfortable life. The kids are loved and appear to be happy. So again, who are we to criticize them? They have said that they prayed after their loss and felt this is what God was guiding them to do. If they still feel that way and are willing to take the risks - however irresponsible I might think that is - then that's new to them.

Long and short of it. Unless you are in fact God, shut up. You cant possibly know what life lesson I'm being taught when God says "no" to a prayer. It ties back to "if you cant say something nice..."

So to the Duggar's I say, I'm so sorry for your loss. And I stop there and hope they find comfort in God's love and in their large family that surrounds them still.

Yes Logan, There IS a Santa Claus

(This is the editorial given when a young girl wrote the New York Sun asking if Santa was real. It's also been an animated story shown in my childhood and just was recently recreated using digital animation. To me, the message is beautiful and what I'd love to teach my son.)

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Leaving Christmas in Christmas...

I can remember when I was a little girl how furious my mother became when she saw "xmas" on anything. She would continue walking around the store ranting (much to my embarrassment) about how there was a reason the word "Christ" was in Christmas and to leave it out was blasphemy and a reason for outrage. At the time, nearly 30 years ago, I thought she was over-reacting just a bit. I mean, c'mon, who could be upset at the word "Christmas"? It's not like people didnt know what the "x" meant.

I was wrong.

Today, it's everywhere or I should say it's NOT everywhere. In New Jersey, there are billboards declaring the entire holiday is a myth. In Philadelphia, the German Christmas Village is now the German Holiday Village because neighbors and a "few workers" complained. Schools are no longer allowed to sing O Holy Night or O Little Town of Bethlehem or even Silent Night in their Holiday concerts. The nativity scene is not permitted on city/state/federal properties and many offices "discourage" the display of anything but secular decorations. Even at my workplace, there are no more "Secret Santas" and the Christmas party became the "Holiday Party" then it became the "Annual Event" and is held in June.

Yes, yes, I know. Christmas is a Pagan holiday and was before Christ was born. Yule was stolen by the Christians so that they could ease the pagans into Christianity by using established "holidays" as their own. The same thing happened with Easter (Ostara) and Hallowe'en (All Hallows Eve). It wasnt right to usurp the existing holiday and make up Christian reasons for the decorations (Christmas Tree, yule log, gifts, etc). But it happened and is now so woven in our framework that I dont think it can or should be separated again.

In this Golden Era (turn on Sarcasm font) of Political Correctness, I think we're going too far. No one is forcing you to celebrate Christmas. If you dont, if you're Jewish and celebrate Hanukkah, or you celebrate Kwanzaa, or if you are and celebrate something else or you are an atheist and just like getting gifts, no one is forcing you to participate in Christmas. Yes, the decorations and songs and imagery are everywhere, but so are the symbols of other seasonal celebrations but this one is ours. I dont see anyone taking down other decorations or preventing them and saying, "Sorry, you might offend someone with your menorah" or the symbols of any other religious holiday for this time of year (mostly because without googling, I cant think of specific ones). It seems to me that only the religious symbols of Christianity are forbidden... to the point that we cant even call it Christmas without worrying that we'll be offending someone.

So, before I just start ranting without making sense or start repeating myself...

Yes, Virginia... there IS a Christmas. It lives in the heart and soul of everyone who remembers it. It lives in mine. And NO ONE can take that away from me unless I let them.

So MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Must be a trend...

Not the kind of trend one wants to see, but ...

You know, if I thought it would really help, I'd tell everyone what happened in my first marriage and what lessons I'd learned.

I learned, first and foremost, never to settle. I dont care if it's in a romance, in a job, in yourself. Life's just too short. I wrote in a journal once that I missed feeling passionate about the person I was with but "that's ok, I dont need passionate love". How sad is that? It wasnt enough to like my ex. He did some rotten things to me, things I'm not ready to write on the internet yet. But, I also wasnt in love with him. I just thought nothing else would come along and thought, why not.

"Why not?" lasted me though 5 years. By then I was fed up with settling and missing out on feeling passionate about anything and didnt know how to handle it. So I cheated on him... alot (well, by some standards). I didnt like myself much for that decision, still dont as a matter of fact. And yes, for all you out there who think, "It just happened" or my favorite, "well you cant control who you love..." It was a decision for me to step outside my vows and it was a decision to get on a plane and fly to Atlanta and it was a decision to let that other guy share my bed. I DECIDED and had plenty of moments to stop and say "No, not this way."

I learned that I should have been a better person and been truthful with myself and him and told him things werent working, that I didnt love him. I should have left him first, gotten my marriage settled first, THEN searched for love. Not the other way around. I owed us both that much. Then I could look back on my past without so much regret and shame. I could still hold my head high or at least a little higher than I do now.

Just within that last week or so, I've heard so many stories of this person leaving that person, telling them they just werent in love anymore or marriage wasnt what they expected, or that it was too hard. They went and found someone who made them feel better about themselves or gave them that energy you get from new relationships or whatever it was they felt was missing and they threw away the other person like they were a piece of used toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

They, like me, CHOSE to respond to desire instead of treating their partner with the respect that every human being deserves. Oh how I wish I could rattle their heads together, but the damage is already done. That's why I say I wish I could tell people what I'd learn. But adultery is a sin as old as time... wouldnt be one of the Ten if it werent so. That's the saddest part. I could expose my sins, my shame, and no one would learn a thing. They'd just rationalize why they have the right to go on with their lives they way they want.

It's just so sad.

When I say that I think someone was wrong for cheating on their partner, those who know me ask, "Well what about you and xxxx"? Yeah... I'm a cheater... You'd think that having lived that mistake and being strong enough to admit that how I handled things was a mistake would entitle me with the right to tell someone else they were wrong.

Nope.

What do you do when the person you know, isn’t the person you thought they were?

Now, first let me say that I’m not talking about my husband. We might have our issues, but I’ve never looked at him and wondered what the hell he was thinking. I’m just venting.

Okay, okay, yes, something triggered it but still, this is a blog, I don’t have to say exactly what caused the vent, do I? Can’t you, the reader, be satisfied in knowing that something was sufficiently bad enough that it drove me to write it all down?

So I ask again. What do you do when the person you know turns out to be someone completely different? How do you look at that person in the same light again? How do you not go look over past events and past conversations and pick them apart, looking for clues you might have missed while you were stumbling around blind?

Yes, it is a known fact that people change, people evolve. I would have to be stupid to not realize that, well stupid or naïve, but still. But there’s evolution and there’s … who the HELL are you? I would blame it on growing older but the situation that triggered this has been going on for years. I am shocked, I am floored, and I am flabbergasted and overwhelmed by it all. It’s too much to take in, too much to process. I’d give details but the story is not mine to tell, and the person to whom the story belongs is too pained to tell it again.

I miss it

What is it, you might ask?

Church. There, I said it. I miss going to church.

When I was growing up, we were one of those families who were in church whenever the doors were open. So many of my memories are steeped in the church that it's hard to think of one that isn't. There was church pageants, vacation bible school, Sunday school songs, etc. I was indoctrinated before I was weened from formula.

God is... was... someone I turned to when things were rough. And frequently, things were rough. Daddy's illness, money troubles, things that I'm not sure little children should know about clouded my view for years. God was my rock, my comfort, my port in the storm. But even at that age, I had trouble believing fully in Him. I can remember seeing my friends "getting blessed" during services and I felt nothing and I was so jealous of them that I actually stuck my fingers in my eyes to make myself cry.

How lame is that?

I turned to my church family as one would to their blood family. My memories are full of the stereotypical Southern church services where we'd sing in stuffy sanctuaries - and they all smelled the same way - old wood, pledge, and some unexplained smell that can only be found in old churches. We'd fan ourselves with these large cardboard fans that came from one of the local funeral homes and usually had a picture of Jesus knocking on a wooden door or praying in Gethsemane. Then there would be table after table of foods, made by good, Christian women. And there'd be a separate table just for desserts. I can still feel the sting of getting my legs pinched on those folding wooden chairs and the smell of the coffee in the percolator.

Church to me was more than a service, more than an expression of my faith. It was my extended family. Which is why, years later, when certain things happened that changed how I saw my "family" that it made so painful to leave, but even more painful to stay.

That was nearly 15 years ago. And I miss it.

I miss the music, the songs, hearing songs like, "He Touched Me" or "It is Well" and the feeling in my heart when I'd sing them. I miss the lump in my throat, the quiver in my voice as I sing, "How Great Thou Art". I miss the sermons, of hearing someone else's take on scripture. I miss the fellowship, the smiles. I miss it all. Well, most of it.

See, when this feeling hits, this feeling that I miss it, then I remember all the reasons I left it. Then I fight with myself over missing it. I also fear, that even if I did start going to church, that I'd never find what I was missing.

Now there's Logan to think of. I want him to have my memories. Well most of them. I dont want him sitting in VBS and watching a movie about the end of the world and be too afraid to sleep or afraid that the rapture has happened and he's missed it when I dont answer his call. Those are other things I dont miss.

I wonder if there's a missing church support group?