In the first couple of weeks after we lost Nina, I refused to feel angry about it. My feeling was that the anger wouldn't help anything, and it almost felt like, if I were to dive down that rabbit hole, I'd never find my way out. It also felt pointless; I knew that what had happened to us was horribly unfair, but there was no one to blame. My doctor did the best she could. My midwife had no reason to think anything was wrong. My family and friends had all supported me throughout the pregnancy. I don't believe in god, or any sort of higher power, so there was no blame to be placed on the universe or fate. Even blaming myself was difficult; I know that I loved her deeply, and I know that I did everything I could to bring her into this world safe and sound. Yes, I was naive, but that certainly wasn't my fault. So, who to blame? at whom do I direct all of this anger and frustration?
And yet, I'm still pissed. I'm filled with a hot and vivid rage, and a cloying, sickening despair. It's all so unfair. It is so fucking wrong and horrible and tragic. I want to rip off my clothes and and tear out my hair, claw my skin off and douse myself in flames. I want to smash in the windows of cars, strangle innocent bystanders, and stomp their faces into unrecognizable heaps of blood, brains and bone. My fists should grow large and cartoon-like, smashing down telephone poles and flattening small animals. I should grow to the size of a giant, and wreak havoc on the world, lumbering over the tops of buildings, snatching planes from the air and gnashing them in my teeth, roaring, roaring, roaring. My fucking baby died. She's dead. She's dead, you fuckers, and we're all going to suffer because of it.
As the boiling hot lava fills me up and spills over, all I can do is sit here, helpless, seething with it, and cry. Beat my fists on the steering wheel. Scream. I am a madwoman. And as much as I wish the car I'm sitting in would explode, as much as I wish that my fingernails would grown into claws so that I could scratch out my eyeballs, as much as I desperately need someone to take a baseball bat to my face, I am still just a woman crying in her car. I am not godzilla. I do not have cartoonishly large fists. I am small. A tiny buoy, floating in a vast, open sea. I lift my head and look around. I'm alive. She's dead, and I'm alive. The roaring in my ears dies down. I'm alive.
I know the anger is a part of how much I loved her. It is aimless, but not meaningless. I feel despair along with the rage because despite its true, real, necessary nature, it changes nothing. I am helpless to turn back time, or to shatter the walls and break into the World In Which Nina-Louise Lives. That world doesn't exist anymore, and it fucking kills me. It's so unfair. So cruel. So unreal. A stupid, meaningless waste. My beautiful baby girl is gone.
She's gone and I'm here. I'm alive. The tide comes in and I tumble with it, washed onto the shore. The volume goes down. The tide recedes. I'm alive.
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