She gets it

Several times since the ultimate tragedy, Chris and I have come away from an encounter, conversation, or dinner out and said to each other, “he gets it” or “she gets it” or “they get it”. No one who hasn’t lost a child along the way can truly get it, but some special people come very close, so close that I want to throw my arms around them with gratitude. Is that what empathy is? The ability to put oneself in another’s shoes, even when the shoes are “the worst thing that could happen”? I had another of these moments when I opened an email this morning. It came from a friend who is full and pregnant and due in the spring, one year from the spring of my great loss. She wrote to warn me that an invitation to her shower will be arriving in the mail. She’s been this way from the beginning of my after, not afraid to call just days after Baker died and not afraid to meet me head on with her own coming babe, acknowledging the weirdness of this dance. It’s funny…just the fact that she recognizes that a baby shower could be difficult for me makes me want to maybe possibly attend. I may sit quietly in the back, but I think I’d like to be there for her.