The kindness of strangers

I will get to my Christopher Friday post later on today... But had to post this first because it was one of the most caring things that has happened to us in a while...and something worth sharing.

One of the things that has been "robbed" from me through trying to grieve my babies is a universal trust of others - as I have mentioned before, I had a pretty good amount of support after my November 2005 miscarriage, but after my March 2006 loss, that support was spread much thinner. Apparently I was a "pro" at miscarriage now and I didn't need as much support. But, I really can't fault anyone for that - it is hard enough for people to support you when they don't know what it is like to miscarry at all. But, it is even harder to support someone who now has the title "Habitual Aborter" medically assigned to them - most women don't get to have this title, just like most women don't have the title "infertile" (although, I get to have that one to - YEAH ME!). What do you say to someone when you have not idea what they are going through?

Through that experience, I have kind of shielded my real feelings from others in real life - I did not look for support when I needed it most, and I pushed others away when I should have reached out to them. But, how could I reach out to them when they just didn't seem to understand or care?

Do you remember my post from May 2006 called Caring from some obscure places? One of the students who worked for me in the summer of 2003 (before I got PG with Chris) as a program assistant called and left a message on our work answering machine wishing me a Happy Mother's Day, after I was virtually ignored by Hubby's family for the day. It was a show of caring that I never expected - and truly lifted my spirit at that time.

Well, something similar happened again yesterday....and from definitely an obscure place.

Hubby LOVES (and did I mention LOVES!!!!) professional wrestling. If he had had his way when he was young, he would have wrestled in school (but, because he mother didn't want to sign any form that required her to release liability from the school if he got injured/killed, he could not do what he really wanted)....and, now, that love could be turning into a potential career change (much more on that later - it is REALLY cool!). So, of course, he belongs to a few message boards about wrestling.

Yesterday, there was a lot of Britney Spears bashing going on across the wrestling boards (as I am sure it is going on all over the place). Now, Hubby and I are not fans of hers at all (although I will admit here that I have her first CD) - but, we do feel bad that she has messed her life so much (a life that has been blessed with so much potential), and that eventually, if she doesn't get the help she needs now, that the mayhem will be passed down to her children. Her children, after all, are the most important factors in all of this turmoil. She needs to face her demons and reclaim her life for her children.

Well, Hubby posted something similar in response to the posts he was seeing - he was tired of seeing a young child (and we say young child here because she never really had a childhood after striking it big!) bashed left and right, her privacy not being respected. He posted about how the children need to be the focus because there are some of us in this world who so long for a healthy child (or, another healthy child in our case) and how it just seems impossible for that to happen for us. It just breaks our hearts to see these children have to live such lives when there are people out there who would just love to show these children more: More love, more life, more understanding.

When he checked back on the boards a few hours later, he received the following response. He felt I needed to see it because he knows how cold I have become to trusting others and trusting in God for answers. I am stripping out all personal identifiers, of course, since Hubby does not know this woman nor her husband, which is the person to have sent Hubby's original post to this woman:

"Hi man,

My name is YYY and I am XXX's wife. I hope you don't mind my writing to you but he showed me your post and it really touched me.

I don't know if this will help but I wanted to tell you not to lose faith about having another child.

My mother was never supposed to have children due to several "female" conditions. And my father was almost completely sterile. They were married 8 years when they had me and when I was 2, they struggled in vain to have another child. My mom was totally heart broken. After several years, she came to terms with the fact that I'd be the only kid they'd have. But when I was 12 and she was 37, my brother was born.....not planned, not expected, but in God's perfect timing all the same.

My dad was 45 and joked he'd be ready to retire during my brother's senior year of High school. We always wondered why in the world that God spaced us out so far and didn't send my brother when my parents longed so much to have him.

In 1995, we found out. When my brother was 5, my dad had his first stroke...renal cancer and back surgery followed in addition to several mini strokes. My brother is 17 now and is 6'4 weighing in at 220. My dad is 6'7 and weighs 280 and confined to a wheelchair after becoming totally disabled in 1999. My brother came when he did because God knew what was down the road for our family. My brother helps around the house, picks Daddy up when he falls and helps him maneuver in and out of his chair.

I don't mean to bore you with my life story, but I just wanted you to know that God's answer to you may not be "no" but just "not yet".

Please tell your wife to have faith. My brother is proof that God hands you blessings when you least expect them.

You will be in our prayers and I wish you both the best.

YYY"

Such a selfless message can mean so much. And, quite a lesson for me to see. I still have that little voice in the back of my head that says, "You need to be off these meds so you can try again." But, the more I hear those voices, the longer the road to actually coming off the meds seems. I know I have to totally put TTC on the back-burner and live in the now, feel better about myself, become whole again. But, it is so much easier said than done.

But, these messages - the ones that come without warning, without strings attached - are nice reminders of what I need to let go of...and put back into God's hands.