Pointless

Sensitive material-use caution please.

I went to Eliana’s hospital yesterday. I have a friend there who just had a tumor removed. There is plenty I could write about that, but this is a blog about my daughter so I’m going to stick to that. My friend was telling us about when she first went in and they had to put a tube down her throat. She told us how badly it hurt. And I was sitting there trying not to break down completely, because I was thinking of my poor little baby getting those tubes shoved up her nose and down her throat every few hours for two and a half weeks straight.

Of course she cried. Of course I knew she didn’t like it. But it was almost necessary for me to pretend that maybe it didn’t really hurt that bad. Hearing my friend speak the truth was like stabbing me in my heart. Oh, God, my poor baby. After a few days of that, her little nostrils would bleed each time they did it. And even though there was no alternative, I hate myself for allowing them to do it. And I hate that it was all for nothing. And I hate-HATE-that my poor baby was in pain and I couldn’t do anything about it. If her life couldn’t be spared, I wish her pain could have been. These times are unbearable for me not only because I can’t change her death, but because I can’t change those parts of her life either. If she was only allowed two months to live, why couldn’t they have been happy?

I ran into two of her doctors while I was there yesterday. One of them said “You did everything you could.” This may or may not be true, but either way I started bawling again. It seems that one of the worst parts of being a bereaved parent is the aching, unshakable feeling that somehow there was something more that I could have done. I should have done MORE. I should have done BETTER. That somehow if I had just tried a little harder, or prayed a little more sincerely, or researched more diligently, I could have protected my child from pain and death.

Logic plays no part here. Reasoning means nothing up against a mother’s love. I was supposed to take care of my baby, and didn’t. The other doctor, after we had talked for a few minutes, said “But you miss her.” And then she hugged me and let me cry on her. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement, and the truest one in my life right now. After all the talking, and crying, and remembering, and questioning, and agonizing, after everything it always comes down to “I just want my baby.”

I don’t really have a point to this post. It seems about as pointless as my Eliana’s suffering. Because neither her hurting, nor me writing about it, changes the fact that she is gone, and there is nothing I can do, or could have done, to change that fact. I know it’s obvious, and unnecessary to even say it again, but if there is a point to this, it’s simply that I miss my baby, and it tears me up inside to think about her being in pain. Pointless pain, because it did not result in her getting well. As my pain seems pointless, because it will never be enough to bring her back. I just miss my baby.