It's Not A Competition

It's not a race. It's not a competition. 
Yeah, sure.
In my experience, people who say that are the ones winning.

...

Every day seems a race, and I always seem to be running backwards.

I hate to run. Ask any of my high-school coaches. The only time I ever enjoyed running was if there was a soccer ball in front of me, but I digress.

Before I got pregnant with Matthew, my competitors were all around me. My friends, the lady standing in front of me at the grocery store, cousins, and anyone close to my age. Every day of my life was spent anticipating and yearning for that promise of a step forward: two pink lines. Friends and co-workers would become pregnant, give birth to beautiful, bouncing babies, and start over again. Rinse and repeat. While I, on the sidelines with an "injury", would dream of the day I could step onto that track and run towards the finish line. Married friends, both older and younger, who'd been married less time than I had, became pregnant, and bubbled with happiness, smiles, and sported a round belly. Again, I looked on, smiling for them, savoring just the smallest taste of their new-mom joy, and envied each moment they had that I did not.

I spent years training for that big race. Years more than anyone else I knew. Did I need it more than them? Were they better prepared than me? Who knows. It was searingly clear that it wasn't my decision.

Then it came. The go-ahead from the Big Coach. "It's your turn. Run." Oh boy did I. Every moment on that track, each time my feet hit the ground that carried me closer to that goal, felt a gift from heaven, and it was. I rejoiced in each ache, pain, and discomfort. It was my turn, finally.

I could see the finish line. That glorious gold ribbon stretched out before me, waiting for me to reach it. Behind the finish line, my beloved husband waited, and in his arms there was a new face. A crying, hungry, beautiful, brand new face that had every feature of Jamie except his chin. He had my chin. My world was almost complete.

As I am running towards that beautiful face, only a short distance left to run, the distance between us growing smaller and smaller by the moment, my world is shattered. Suddenly, the finish line is upon me, sooner than expected. It's not supposed to be there, I should still be running. There is a flurry of people upon me, but not with the happy, congratulatory faces I expected. Instead I am met with faces of badly hidden pity, sorrow, and sadness. Faces that make attempts at forced smiles, but instead fill my heart with discomfort and fear. Faces of intense worry. All for me. All I can think is "What's happening?"

They hand me a child, attached to that beautiful face I had been running towards just moments ago. My mind rails against reality, rejecting what is, and gouged of what was to be. "It's too soon."

The face still holds that intense beauty, but smaller. Daddy's lips move to take those first breaths, Daddy's nose bubbles with leftover fluid as air fills tiny lungs. Little tiny hands reach toward me, even though those beautiful eyes I saw earlier, are still fused shut. Little feet kick my chest, weakly, but with my stubborn attitude. Mommy's tiny chin, finishing that beautiful face, rests against my breast. "It's too soon." I fall utterly, completely, helplessly in love with that face. Never to return. It shall be fused into my mind till the day I die, but it's taken away too soon.

Someone in a uniform comes and tells me "He's almost gone." I understand what she says, but don't grasp it. My mind tells me "No, he's supposed to stay forever. This isn't right."

What seems like seconds after I say hello to my new son, my dream of dreams, I have to say goodbye.

"It's too soon."

...

I find myself on the all too familiar sidelines again. Reeling from my unfinished race, and my agonizing grief, but telling myself "You have to run."

In a cloud of cruel deja vu, I see again my friends on the track, starting a new race, before mine had even ended. Their family stands on the other side of the finish line waiting, larger than mine. Happier than mine. The prizes of their previous races there to cheer them on. 

Jamie stands slumped alone on the other side of the finish line, waiting for me. The absence of our beautiful face all too blatant to both of us. A weak smile, full of sad encouragement, crowns his lips. I stare at my feet, still unsteady, still recovering, but determined to run. I look to the Coach, and ask to be put in.

Now I wait. Again. The fresh memories of that race over too soon still slicing in my mind and heart. The overwhelming desire to still be running for that beautiful little boy grates my insides. The track stretches out before me, looming and impossible. I've picked up what pieces I could find of my broken heart, bound them together with the thinnest thread of hope, and I wait to be put in.

It is a race. Those ahead are too focused on what's at the finish line to look behind, and those behind are left to watch the winners as they reach their beautiful faces.