We drove down Friday morning, the sun was shining, it was a pretty day for a drive. No clouds up here. Some pretty fluffy bright white clouds about half-way. Some wispy, feathery clouds down closer.
When we got in to the hotel, the boys went to visit the USS Texas battleship and I stayed behind to get in a quick nap. I knew Saturday was going to be a busy day and I didn't want to overdue Friday and mess up Saturday.
They said it was really cool and great for history buffs. Hubby came back with more than 80 pics on my camera so yea I think he had fun!
We went in search of dinner and wound up at a favorite seafood chain restaurant where we met this little guy.
Sad to say he's probably not there in that tank anymore. :(
So let me tell you what happened at dinner. The waitress comes to greet us and is a bit flustered, can't find her pen, rips a receipt by accident, just all around tired. I told her to take a deep breath and relax and asked her if she'd had a rough day. She responded with "Rough week and we buried my nephew today!" WHAT?! Well ok, permission granted for the flustered-ness. I simply said I was sorry and we got on to the dinner. As we were leaving she was wiping down the table next to ours. I couldn't help the overwhelming need to give this girl a hug. Hubby knew it was coming. He knows now that when there's a child's death involved that I'm probably gonna have to say something. He's right! I told her again how sorry I was for her family's loss. She proceeded to tell me that she had also lost a son who was almost 2yrs old. She saw my Bailey's footprints and told me she has her son's footprints on her back. She told us that her sister had been in a car accident and was 6mos along and lost the baby. Then she said it!! She said "I wish my sister had skipped the whole funeral thing and saved the family the grief." W.O.W. I believe my mouth opened just a bit. All at once my mind was racing. Do I say what I am encouraged to say or just drop it? I didn't even look at hubby but I'm sure he rolled his eyes and I'm pretty sure he could see the smoke coming out of my ears as I tried to decide in a millisecond what to say to her. Like a funeral or no funeral will be saving the family grief. We all know that closure is best when it comes to handling grief so why would she say that? There wasn't time nor was the middle of a crowded restaurant the place to have the conversation that was beginning in my head so I had to decide what to do, and fast. You know I had to say something. To say nothing at all would be coward-ing to the taboo that I am trying to so hard to abolish. So here goes. I looked at her straight in the face and said the funeral isn't about you. I said I'm not trying to be rude and disrespectful but this is a memory that she is making with her child. Possibly the very last memory of her baby and it is really about her and what she needs to continue on without him. She now has a place to go and feel close to him and a place that is sacred to her. She looked a bit taken back with my comment but then she agreed with me and said that it was true, it was for her and not for the rest of the family. I asked her if I could give her a hug and we embraced both with a tear in our eye for all our babies.
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