Why Peter?

Today, I got mad. Why? WHY WHY WHY? Why Peter?

My mindful self knows that Anita did great things on this earth. She touched many people. She did God’s work and burned her candle at both ends for the short time she was here. I know that she did her work, but then she was done and is now in heaven.

But why why why Peter?

Last week, the hospital sent me a package of photos they took of Peter. Maybe it sounds perverse to talk about a dead baby – he was gone before he was born. (Was he really even born? He was c-sectioned out of Anita’ body but neither were alive.)

The night before they died, Anita and I laid on the floor, watching a movie. I could see Peter kicking and moving inside Anita’s stomach. The next morning, in my crisis-strewn mental state, I was only thinking of Anita. Help her, help her. I forgot about him.

At the hospital, they took me to a waiting room. Very soon, they brought him in. What? I forgot? He was wrapped in a blanket with a little blue cap on. Is he okay, I said? No, he didn’t make it, they told me. I held him for an hour, the only time I got to spend with him. His lips were turning purple. They asked if they could take him to take some photos of him and I figured it woudl be the only chance I had to remember him. Have something that proved he was here.

At first I told myself that he wasn’t meant to be. He’s our lost little boy. The brother that the kids never got to hold or play with.

But I stopped thinking about him. Every time I see his name or photo or think of him, it’s too much. We got nothing with him.

A Muslim friend of mine email me some amazing thoughts that make me cry just to read it.

“There is a teaching in Islam that if a child passes away before he is born, on Judgement day he will plead God to allow his parents to both enter the gates of heaven and will pull them up to heaven.”

Would you know my name, if you saw me in Heaven? Eric Clapton’s song rings through my head.

Why Peter?