God's Plan, My Ass

Last Friday, the caregivers/teachers at N's daycare/preschool were all huddled together talking in hushed whispers when I dropped N off. I meant to ask what was up, but got distracted.

On Monday, I got an email from one of the room reps, telling us that a teacher from the toddler room--a woman who has taken care of both E and N, and is beloved by both of them--had lost one of her daughters in a car accident that day. Unbelievable, unbearable.

But it gets worse. In talking to the center's director, I found out that the daughter had been pregnant with her third child and was just two weeks shy of her due date.

Last night was the viewing; this morning was the funeral. Many of the teachers from the center were going, and when I went to drop N off this morning, they were giving instructions to the various subs staying behind who were going to make sure the kids were all covered with an adequate number of caregivers. Still, I managed to pull one of N's teachers aside and ask how the viewing had gone, how R (the teacher from the school whose daughter and grandson these were) was holding up. Her eyes filled with tears.

"R's doing great. Really great. I don't think it's hit her yet. But, TC, it was just so unbelievably sad, seeing C [the daughter] lying there, with the baby in her arms. That perfect baby. There was nothing wrong with him at all, not a cut or a bruise. He just looked like he was asleep."

Now, I am not a cryer. I didn't cry at my own grandmother's funeral, though my heart was broken. But this. This made me cry. Not wracking sobs, just quiet tears that have come on and off all day, every time the horror of it all strikes me anew. A perfect baby, asleep in his mother's arms, where he will remain for eternity.

There is nothing fair about this. There is no lesson to learn. There's nothing good here. It just is. It just is.