Empty jogger

Sometimes rubbing salt in the wound is one hundred percent innocent and unavoidable.

Yesterday we took part in the March of Dimes March for Babies that took place in Harrisonburg. We were walking on the "Tres Milagros" team, which was formed in honor of the triplets who benefited from Janelle's extra breastmilk during Nora's life and for some time thereafter. They and their parents have become our friends, and we enjoyed the morning together. Of course with the emphasis of the event being on supporting babies in their health challenges at the beginning of life, we had Nora on our minds a lot.

Kali, even with all her energy, couldn't be expected to walk even the "short route" unassisted, so we transported her in our jogger stroller, the weight limit on which she has almost certainly surpassed. But after the walk we all milled around for a while, munching the provided pizza and hot dogs, playing with the toys from the kids' toys and bubbles table, and generally goofing off. For some reason at one point I was following Kali around at some distance, but still pushing the jogger.

And that's when the unfortunate coincidence occurred, as a friendly crowd member saw me pushing the empty jogger and quipped, "Where's your baby?" This jolted me in ways I couldn't have predicted. It was like a nightmare that lasted for half a second. I think I was able to recover quickly enough to smile at the woman and avoid letting her know there was anything hurtful about her innocent joke. The general public should not be obliged to tiptoe around every little comment that could possibly abbraid the sensitive emotional nerve endings of a grieving parent. It's nobody's fault, and it's nobody's responsibility. It just happened, and it just hurts. And then it doesn't as much, and the ruffled feathers soothe back down, and I can go back to paying attention to the beautiful day.