Another day

Tuesday June 26, 2012

Dearest Shelby and Dalton,

Today was a hard day.  I don’t know why, but I just feel so hateful and angry.  I know you wouldn’t want your momma feeling like this.  I see so many things that make me go on rants.  I’m jealous of everyone with babies.  I looked at all the pictures your auntie got to post on stupid facebook of your cousin and I just felt such jealousy.  I hear about a boy aged 10, he’s one of 8 children (yes 8), he doesn’t know his biological father, his mother is “as big as a house” to quote our friend.  This woman just keeps pumping out the children, and her new husband drinks a lot and is possibly verbally abusive to these 8 children.  My heart hurts for this boy, I wish he had a better family environment.  There’s women every day who are getting knocked up without being married and they get to celebrate at baby showers.  Yes, I’m bitter.  Yet you two were taken from us.  There is no justice in this world.   

You probably are making friends with another angel baby, Nasiah Lynn.  She was the third daughter of Jaime and Vernon, and also their third angel.  They used the same doctor we did with their twin girls and again with Nasiah.  That scares the hell out of me.  I think about it all the time, the fear that would accompany another pregnancy.  Even if we were successful, any other children would never replace you.  They would know all about their big sister Shelby and their big brother Dalton.  Everyone loved your names.  One of my friends told me when she heard those names, she said they sounded exactly like something I would pick.

Our Rangers beat the Detroit Tigers today, 7-5.  For the last few times I’ve watched baseball, excluding this game, all the pitchers have been lefties.  Dalton, although you never held a baseball, judging from the way you waved that left arm around in your few short days with us, I was convinced you had inherited left-handedness from your Daddy and your Grandpa (my Daddy and your namesake).  I knew you were going to excel at athletics.  If it was baseball, either as a much-in-demand left handed pitcher, a catcher (as catchers usually tend to be big ol’ boys, plus your daddy was a catcher in Little League) or a shortstop (my maternal grandpa was a short stop in a semi-pro league back in the 1920s and 30s).  If it was football, probably a long snapper (they have excellent lengthy careers) or maybe a defensive lineman, if you had my daddy’s height, my fiery explosive temper and your daddy’s broad shoulders.  Your Uncle Bill was an offensive linemen in that semi-pro league up in Montana and he had our Houston Texans recruiting him.  Wouldn’t that have been something?  But he chose to stay in the Air Force. 

Shelby, I hope all this talk of baseball and football isn’t boring you.  I like to think you would have been as interested in sports as your Momma and Daddy are.  I’ve been accused of being “high-maintenance”, and I know I would have passed a few of those tendencies on to you, but I also would have been delighted to take you to football baseball and hockey games.  Of course, your Larry Fitzgerald Cardinals jersey would have been pink with rhinestones on it – no better way to combine those fashionista habits with our tomboy ways.

I asked your Daddy the other day if he thinks that when we all meet up again in heaven, if you’ll be babies like the last time we saw you, or if you will be all grown up, perhaps age 35 (assuming we’re inhabiting this earth for that long)?  Of course, there was no way for your  Daddy to answer that question, for although he’s the smartest man I know, he can’t research how Heaven works.

This week is hard on your daddy too.  He's in Texas for work.  We were so excited to take the two of you to Texas, and oh so many other places.  He just told me he's lonely and missing his babies.  That broke my heart.  If you could see fit to give him some little sign to say hello, that would be wonderful.  It's killing us babies.  I think we're trying to picture you as 6month olds, as you would be reaching that milestone next Wednesday.  Then, we also are thinking of you as 8 week olds, which is how old you would have been had you been born on your original due date.  

Your momma and daddy love and miss you.