Undo

Computers have their pitfalls, but seriously, is there any better thing you can imagine that the "undo" or "delete" features found on our keyboards and within our computer programs. The ability to take away something unintended, erroneous or regrettable. If I had such a button there are so many words I have uttered which I would simply delete, so many things which I have thought that I would just erase, so many feelings I have felt that I would just undo. Of course I would love to just undo my sons' deaths, erase the pain that those deaths have left, fill in the giant gaping holes in my heart with a photoshop-like ease as if they'd never been there at all. Aside from those obvious things there is another that I've carried with me for probably ten years now which I only began to regret eight years ago after losing Wyatt. While I was employed during graduate school I can across a situation where a family had lost their newborn daughter. I had access to their photographs of her and their family. She had been lost either prior to or during birth. I distinctly remember viewing those photos and commenting to a co-worker that it seemed a little morbid to keep those photos. Typing these words causes me pain now but then I was just an outsider viewing a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation. My co-worker, whether from experience or aged wisdom, replied to me that those photos were all they had of their little girl.

How many conversations can you remember from ten years ago, nonetheless conversations with a co-worker? I will likely never forget that one, it made an impact on me years before I would create a photo album with pictures of my own deceased children. However, that would be one I would delete. My lack of sensitivity and empathy is embarrassing. I am so thankful my words never graced that family's ears. I am grateful that my sadness and sorrow has given me a perspective which I believe I may never have otherwise gained and a sensitivity which not so many of us have. Yet as I sit here it occurs to me that even though I have lost two babies on the day of their births I STILL don't understand that family's exact grief because my sons cried, they breathed and they opened their eyes - if only for a moment. Their daughter never did. Her birth was silent and the tears shed that day were their own. Yes, I would definitely "undo" those words in a heartbeat.