Sadness

My Nettie died last night. She has been battling lung cancer for a while now. It's a horrible way to go, but thankfully she was surrounded by her children and husband when she took her last breath. She told me just a few days ago, before she lost the ability to speak at all, that she was hoping to meet this next baby of ours. Actually she said she was hoping to meet "her" and we all thought she might just hang on long enough to realise that dream. For a while I felt like I controlled the end of her life. If I could just keep this baby in there long enough then we could have that much more time with her. But I know she was really just trying to tell me that she was going soon.

There is relief in her passing, only because she is finally at peace and no longer in pain. When the catheter went in at the beginning of the week we all kind of accepted that she was never going to get out of her bed again. She had already stopped living at that point and her body was failing her at a rapid pace. I've never seen a dead person before and I was a little afraid for reasons I can't really explain. But she looked so beautiful and calm when I said goodbye to her this afternoon, so totally at peace and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I am too sad to have this baby right now. So full up with emotions of loss rather than excitement. We blew up the birth pool tonight and finished the last of the laundry. Our house is ready but I am not. I feel like once I can let all this sadness go, once I have found some order and meaning out of the chaos in my head, then this baby will come running to us and life will start anew.