Some Things are Just Not the Same

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is to visit old cemeteries (Yes Meredith, I do it too). I love to read the grave markers and think about who the person was, what they might have been like and how different things are these days. I especially love the really old ones. One of my favorite pictures from my honeymoon is of me at a cemetery in Kona standing next to a donkey that was tied up there.

Anyway, I get it from my mom and dad. We used to go for Sunday drives and one of the places we'd always stop was a cemetery. I remember when they first moved to New Orleans, the cemeteries are what intrigued us the most. Everywhere we go, we almost always visit a cemetery. It's for the sake of history and some strange curiosity I guess.

So today we were wandering around Charleston and of course found the old Church cemeteries. Actually, the old cemeteries were why we went to the old churches. Anyway, there is so much history here that the cemeteries are filled with items dating back to the late 1600's. There are famous people; people who signed the Declaration of independence and the brave souls who signed the Order of Succession. Under normal circumstances I would have run to those and read them all, I would have looked for the giant markers of the wealthy merchants and wondered who they were and what their lives were like.

Today was different. I obsessively scanned for infants and small children. I wanted to see who had babies who were stillborn. I wanted to hurt for the poor women who were buried next to their dead children years after she lost them. I always knew they were there, but I really didn't focus on them. It was always too sad. Today I needed to feel the pain for those women. I needed to mourn those children and long to hold the babies. It was crazy. I managed to do it and not really let on to everyone else. I did point them out, but my emotions were all inside. I can feel it now. I can feel the anguish and the pain.

I wonder if there's a giant nursery in heaven filled with babies whose mommies haven't made it up yet. I wonder if the mommies who have gone before are up there taking care of them. I really do often wonder about that. Who is looking after my baby? Is my grandmother up there rocking Audrey with the babies she lost? My father's mother miscarried sixteen times and had one son who was alive for only a few days (I have no idea how she survived all of that. She was an amazingly strong woman). Is she looking after Audrey too? When I first lost Audrey, a very sweet woman from TLOL sent me a note that her mother had died and before she went, she said she was going up to take care of all the babies until their mommies could be with them. I think of that often and for some reason, it brings me comfort. It really matters. We wonder about things like that. We want to know that our babies are safe when we can't be with them. It's our job to take care of our babies and if we can't, then who is?