366 TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR Part 19

 Though I plan to begin to reveal the most painful details as TWINKLE TWINKLE continues to unfold in this post, I feel the need, in the interest of clarity, to review the moments before Janet could not be awakened from her nap.  I also feel the need to preface Part 19 of TWINKLE TWINKLE with this train of thought: 

It's important to note that a hanging ‘sense’ of tragedy will remain ingrained within my unconscious awareness for many decades to come.  And thus will my mind come to value a heightened appreciation for developing a strong sense of self-control, which will influence the way I choose to raise my children, down the road.  As tragic experiences cannot be erased, I feel the need to reexamine the consequences of emotional chaos in hopes of regaining a sense of inner peace, which I'd lost at the tender age of three.  As you read this post, I hope you'll ask yourself:  What might occur in the mind of a child who has no clue why her entire adult support system has fallen into an abyss of sustained torment?  What might this child make of Janet's mysterious disappearance?  What self defeating traits might chaos (and misperception) cause this child to unwittingly adopt?  As with everything else, there’s bad news and good news.

The bad news is this:  *It’s true that the chaos surrounding my sister's death catalyzed my acquisition of character traits, which did not serve me well.  The good news is this:  *By way of seeking out and working to apply insight to my life, fearful traits, acquired during childhood, may be identified, examined and tweaked for the better, once instinct leads me to develop into a deeply reflective adult.  In short, *open minds can reconsider preceptions at every age and stage of life.  Before we move forward in the life of a three-year old child, whose baby sister had 'mysteriously disappeared', let's go back and review the moments before anyone could possibly have fathomed what fate had in store for our family, next:
Since a gathering of dark clouds is beginning to hide the sun, which is sinking in the west, it’s time for Grandma to push open that screen door, so you and she can walk toward the buggy in which Janice had been napping on our back porch.

Grandma pushes the screen door open, steps out onto our private back porch, and upon bending over the navy blue buggy to rouse the ‘sleeping’ infant, the sudden shrillness of her scream, as she shouts out my mother’s name—Jennie!”—slices through my parents’ hearts as though they’ve been simultaneously stabbed by the same, sharp knife.  Dad‘s whistle dies midstream; groceries fall from my parents’ hands straight to the floor, and as fast as flying arrows pierce the air, the terrified couple flies toward Ella’s shrieks.

Crashing through the screen door, Mom’s and Dad’s eyes dart from the panicked expression on Grandma’s face to their baby’s sleeping form. Janet’s lifeless body lays heavily in the center of the buggy—just as she’d been laid to rest several hours ago—on her tummy, face to one side, long lashes sweeping down toward one sweet cherubic cheek.

Imagine my blond, blue eyed, solidly packed, five-foot-six, startled young father standing next to my sweet terrified young mother, as they and Grandma huddle around the buggy, peering frantically down at the baby who’d been so pink-cheeked, bright eyed and vibrantly alive only three, short hours ago—

         Imagine the expression of horror that imprints deeply into Jennie’s, Jack’s, and Ella’s faces as my mother lifts the small, limp baby out of that buggy, and Janet’s chin falls solidly against her chest—

         Imagine my mother cradling her child, attempting to perform mouth to mouth resuscitation, while my father spins around—flings open the screen door and holds it for my mother so the panic stricken pair can run through the dining room and tear down the hall—with my terror-stricken grandmother in close pursuit.

         Imagine a little girl, two weeks shy of three, staring up at her terror-struck mother, who’d grabbed a powder pink blanket out of the buggy to wrap around her precious baby, who's cold to the touch.

         Imagine three adults dashing through the dining room and down the hallway—while running in close pursuit—pulling up the rear is—the little caboose.

         Imagine my mother crying out, “Jack! Jack!  She’s OK!  She’s OK!”  Because the baby’s body is exhaling the breath that my mother will continue to blow into her daughter’s tiny mouth—all the way to the hospital.

         Imagine my father grabbing up the car keys on the telephone table—yanking our apartment’s front door open, so he, Mom, and their precious bundle can rush into the hall and down those same three flights of stairs without giving a thought to putting on coats—

Imagine a pair of pounding hearts running toward their car—leaping in—driving to the hospital as fast as the wind—

Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Breathe Janice.  Breathe

Oh God—please breathe, Janet, breathe!

Imagine my super-hero dad parking the car—

Turning off the ignition—

Flinging open his door—

Jumping out the driver’s side—

Running around the car to help his wife—

Imagine Jennie and Jack running into the emergency room—

A nurse takes Janet out of Jennie’s terrified, protective arms—

Imagine Jack sitting down.  Filling out paper work—

(Filling Out Paper Work????)

Imagine Jennie and Jack pacing while waiting—praying—

Pleading with G-d—Waiting—Waiting—praying—

Pleading—Waiting—Until finally—

They stand still as statues made of marble as a white-coated doctor walks toward them—and hearts pounding—they keep hoping—

Till that last shred of hope snaps in half—

Imagine their minds registering the opaque expression on the doctor’s face.

Do words make sense when a stranger explains that he can’t explain why their baby is irretrievably—gone?

How does one make sense of words that make no sense at all— 

Imagine two heavy lumps pumping hard and fast enough to burst inside Jennie’s and Jack’s chests, as irrational hope dies as surely as did their child.

Imagine the fiery throbbing that takes place inside their brains as though a red-hot iron vice is squeezing against the temples on both sides of their heads.

Imagine the impossibility of walking out of that hospital—

The impossibility of driving home—

The impossibility of leaving their tiny daughter behind—

With strangers—

In a morgue—

Imagine an autopsy ordered to determine the unknown cause of death—

Imagine my mother and father standing—

Turning to each other after the doctor, expressing his condolences, walks away—

Do they hold each other tight?

Do they sob?  Or has each frozen solid where they stand?

My mother doesn’t remember.  My father’s not living to ask.

Imagine two zombies walking out of that hospital.

Imagine all you like.

Though we can try to imagine every scene, we can’t imagine what Jennie and Jack felt, unless we’ve walked in their shoes.

All you and I can feel, today, is compassion growing strong.

We can’t fathom the pain that Jennie and Jack must endure as hours become days and days become weeks—unless your sense of empathy has experienced the torture of all-consuming, irretrievable grief.
Have you ever experienced a life or death situation, concerning your child?  

If Jack holds the car door open for Jennie that’s because it is his habit.  Picture she and then he droppiing heavily into their seats.

As the young couple sit side by side, an instinctive state of shock swallows the mind whole, thus allowing my parents some semblance of sanity.

Do they cry as they ride—side by side?

Toward their apartment, where Grandma paces and I watch in shock—

Because cry their eyes dry, over time, they certainly will—

Feelinghelplesshopelessdisbelievingwhollydevastated—

How does Jack concentrate on the road?
How empty are Jennie's arms?

How robotic can the human brain become?

How will they stand it when agony attacks their brains, pounds nails into their hearts, and ties their colons into knots once conscious awareness breaks through shock’s temporary merciful, mental fog?

My mother does remembers this:

“No!  No!”

Jennie cries out loud as Jack steers their car through traffic –

“It didn’t happen!  I don’t believe it happened!

It can’t have happened!  What happened?

Jack!  What happened?  What happened?

Where is she?  Where is she?  Janet!  Janet! –

“NO!  NO! NO!”

A changed man and woman step out of that car.  Jennie and Jack walk on legs that feel like logs.  Lifting feet, heavy as bricks, they climb back up those three flights of stairs.  If a brown paper bag, filled with groceries, had been forgotten and left behind on the back seat, earlier in the day, will it matter when that soggy bag sours the upholstery with a permanent stain?  *Who cares for 'things' when an emotional tornado tears through the mind, drowns the spirit, torments the soul, and whips the infrastructure of a nervous system—flat? 

        *Is there any wonder that we know people who have privately experienced so much emotional chaos that—in order to numb their minds to pain, which has grown intolerable—their high flying spirits deflate, little by little, over time?  *Might depression or denial offer solace, when clarity can't stand on its own?

       And what do we make of those who misjudge any anesthetized mind as having come too easily unstrung?  *Must the intelligence of an exhausted person stand on a soapbox and relate a detailed account of all he or she has chosen to endure—quietly—heroically—in the name of love—before a crowd of Doubting Thomas' reconsider hasty judgments and think to offer up the benefit of the doubt?

         As days and weeks pass, and night falls, will each person in this family awaken—in agony—as dark trains of thought, filled with undeserved guilt, thrash back and forth inside minds, anguishing over questions, such as —‘What could I have done differently?  What did I miss?  Or—Why didn't I think to check on her?’
       As two broken hearted parents rage war against fate, reflecting over every detail that the most responsible parents on Earth could not have changed, dark days will blur into endless nights—because night lasts forever and the sun does not shine when peace of mind edges over a cliff, and hearts feel dashed against the jagged rocks of LIFE.

(On second thought, make that four severely wounded hearts.   Jennie’s.  Jack’s,  Ella’s.  And one terribly frightened little girl.)

A myriad of ‘mistakes’ commonly takes place when the heart/mind connection remains overwrought, over long.  *When the central nervous system stresses, strains, and stretches in distress beyond belief—release—or relief, it’s imperative that each person recognizes turning points before breaking points occur—otherwise, one may slip into depression ... denial ... or both.  *We often do not recognize signs of depression creeping up, because a spirit, engulfed within a fog, is unaware of being swallowed whole.

When every adult in a family has been struck, how might the surrealistic nature of such a drastic change affect the emotional development of a very young child, whose round, bright eyes are transfixed upon her personal loss—which would be—the safe haven of 'her world', spinning off it’s axis, spiraling up side down and crashing to a staggering stop inside a bottomless well that’s black as Hell.  Which part of this hellish turmoil can an inexperienced, attentive mind possibly process while waiting fearfully in the apartment, sucking her thumb and keeping close watch over her distraught grandma, who can't stop wringing her hands while wailing to God, as she paces back and forth from room to room until the small child’s parents’ return—with no baby to be seen?  And what of details, in the aftermath of that dreadful day, which few, if any, had known?  Details that I could not know until many decades had passed, and my 88 year old mother opened her memory bank and shocked me beyond belief while we were relaxing, side by side, on my patio swing, staring at the mountain, directly behind my house.  I remember my foot stomping the ground, stopping the relaxing, sway of that swing.  I remember blood pumping through my body as my head swung away from the peaceful mountain landscape and toward my mom.  I remember trying to fathom this memory, which she'd consciously secreted away—to protect someone she'd loved.
Later, upon regaining my composure, I reflected, more deeply upon details that I'd never known.  And I realized that after holding her tongue for all these years, my mother had offered me the opportunity to witness an amazing example of unconditional love.  *At that point, I came to see that unconditional love tends to offer up tons of pain unless insight leads a wounded heart and mind toward understanding and healing, which results in gain ... at first for one ... and then ... with patience/positive focus/hope and time ... healing may be inspired to spread ... all around.