Unbelievable. August has come and gone and it is September already.
August with its birthdays. My birthday, Craig's birthday and Jet's birthday.
I loathe birthdays now.
I was brought up to believe that birthdays are special. That the birthday-person is special. That it deserves to be celebrated. But now the last thing I feel like doing on birthdays is celebrate. Instead birthdays have become an unavoidable milestone. Another year gone, another year older. It feels like I'm sliding down the slippery slope of old age. And the older I get the less likely it is that I will parent a living child.
Anyway, for this year the birthdays and the deathdays have gone. But I know that it won't be long until it's February, when Kees should be turning 4, and then March when his deathday will approach with speed.
:::
Craig and I made some decisions this week.
We decided that we are going to leave Amsterdam, and head back to Australia. Finally!
I guess we've been postponing the decision, but its time had come. We have nothing to stay in Amsterdam for. Nothing and no-one. Our future (whatever it will be) is in Australia.
We're going to a little seaside town in South Australia. We bought a block of land there after Kees died. We haven't seen it (!!) except for on maps and with Google.Earth. But it's a lovely little town, with beautiful beaches and 5 acres for us to build a new home together.
So the winter which is coming towards us now will be our last one in Europe ... yippee!!
I am longing for trees and space and beach and sunshine and a garden ... it is definitely time to move.
:::
Also this week I found out that my ex-best-friend (who recently got married) has had a child.
I was looking on the Amsterdam real estate website, as I always do, when I saw her apartment advertised. So I looked and looked at the photos, and lo and behold, there it was. A baby room. I was so shocked that I started shaking.
I stopped being friends with this woman (F) after Kees' death. F has always been a social butterfly and always makes too many commitments. Then she regularly cancels them. And she had gotten into the habit over the years of cancelling me. When Kees died she continued to cancel me, as she always had. It was very upsetting to me, so I spoke with her about it. We really talked, because it was important to me that she understand. And I thought she did. But she didn't. She kept cancelling. And I kept being upset. In the end I told her I didn't want to see her any more. I needed reliable people in my life, and she wasn't. She didn't understand at all, so our friendship ended very abruptly.
I haven't heard anything from her or about her for about 3.5 years. Until I saw that real estate advertisement and photos on the net. And it was like being punched in the gut.
It is impossible to describe to any woman who has living children and no dead children, how I feel when others around me have "normal" lives. How I feel when they have healthy living children. How I feel that they have a successful career and a healthy child(ren). How I feel because I had all that and I lost it all. How I feel because my life lies in tatters around me. I cannot describe it to them. But even if I was able to do so, they can not understand. And they don't want to understand. Really. They want nothing to do with even the idea of a dead child.
So there I was, staring at the laptop, seeing evidence of a baby in F's life. And I was shaking and crying. Because there on the screen was more evidence that everyone around me gets everything they want. And I loathe that.
My mum said to me (after Jet's death) that I should be "happy" for others because they have healthy happy families. But I cannot. I cannot be happy for people who have everything that I had, but which was ripped from me and destroyed.
I was so shocked about F's life and child, that I contacted the one real-life friend I have, K. The problem is that K is also a friend of F. The three of us were always good friends, close friends. So when I told K that I was absolutely shocked to find out that F had a child, she immediately became defensive. She said that being friends with us was difficult enough. That I shouldn't be negative about F. That F suffered so much because sometimes her bad health prevents her from looking after her own child. That I should stop being so negative about F and K. And that she now knows how I feel about her (K).
It was quite shocking. It appeared that she deliberately misinterpreted everything I said to her. Everything. Every word. She took up an immediate defensive position to defend F and herself. As if I was attacking them. When all I was doing was sharing my shock and pain with her.
That evening, after I had cried and cried and drank some wine, whilst I was sleeping, Craig rang K and spoke to her. He tried to explain what I had said (although the words were quite clear). Even on the phone with Craig, K was defensive. She immediately jumped to F's defence and said how F had been crying just the other day because she couldn't care for her own child. I don't think it occurs to K that we can't care for any of our children. (I also said to her that Craig and I would gladly have given up our good health for even one of our children to live. I think she didn't even hear that.)
She said to Craig that it is hard for her to listen to me talking about my dead children for "hours". That's what she said. And you know what?? I don't talk about my dead children for hours. Never. The only place I talk about my children is at home, with Craig. Or here, on my blog. Or on FB, with my baby-lost friends. Or with my parents, on my children's special days. I have learned (the hard way) over the last 5 years that NO-ONE wants to hear about dead children. People don't even want to be confronted with the memory of a dead child. We, Craig and I, even without opening our mouths, are too much for people. No-one wants to have any sort of conversation or relationship with me, a baby-lost mother. Because they DON'T WANT TO KNOW.
We are freaks. Craig and I. Our children are freaks. Because they are dead. Because no reasons for their deaths have been found. It's better to put freaks like us as far away as possible. Shut them out of your life, out of your children's lives. Believe the fairy tale that bad things only happen to bad people. Believe that only freaks' children die.
K has been a friend for more than 10 years. But it's very clear now that she has no idea what our lives are like. She thinks that if she invites us over for a meal once every 3-4 months, that she is "relieving us temporarily of our pain". Seriously, those are her words. She has no idea that losing a child is forever. That the grief doesn't just stop. That I might be angry at the world. That I might be envious of all those who have what I lost. She has no idea.
So she now thinks that our friendship has ended. Unbelievably. Because I said to her that I was shocked that F had a child. That I was angry that everyone gets what I had and lost. That's what causes a 10 year friendship to end.
And you know what? I can't be bothered any more. She's never even realised that our dinners with her and her family are painful for us. She doesn't even see that when she shows me her holiday photos, it's a stab in my heart when every photo is of her kids.
:::
So there it is.
A new month.
More than two years since Jet died.
Another friend lost.
A decision made.
Oh, and the cats are both ill and sneezing, and I've lost 12 kg so far.
