Lightning Crashes
As she lay next to Jack, Heather felt her mind and body shut down. Her defenses weakened under the lure of slumber and visions of her lost daughter filled her brain. She didn’t want to bring the memory into her dreams with her. If she fell asleep thinking about the loss, the bad thoughts would attach themselves to her brain like unwanted barnacles.
Heather knew that losing a child could only happen as punishment for some horrible sin she had committed. God knew how she loved all children and how she lived to protect them. She had even turned it into a full-fledged career.
Nothing and nobody would ever convince Heather that she wasn’t to blame for her daughter’s death. She had taken good care of her pregnancy so she knew it wasn’t a physical sin she’d committed. Heather decided the loss was retribution for some horrid crime she’d committed against the spiritual world.
Memories of the tiny soul whose life and death took place within two short hours teased her nerves. In her vulnerable sleep state, the mental doors that usually remained tightly closed creaked open. They overpowered her natural ability to numb out feelings and blur out thoughts.
She could still see the doctors rushing in and out of her hospital room and could still hear the beeping of machines. The voices of the medical staff were unmistakably urgent as panic took over her hospital room.
Heather could still see the perfectly formed body of her tiny daughter. The child had opened her mouth to cry but no sound came out. Above all else, it was the part that broke Heather’s heart. The soreness in her vagina and the emptiness in her womb had taken a back seat to the sadness she felt for her broken baby with lungs that didn’t work.
The twenty-five hour labor had ended in silence. The face of her obstetrician floated above her, his features appearing to her a blurry mask. The sedatives and pain medications pumped into her throughout the night had Heather struggling to keep her eyes open. Hard as she fought not to, she had passed out after holding her baby for just a second or two.
For years, Heather cursed the exhaustion that had overtaken her. She believed it to be the ultimate nail in her daughter’s coffin. Had she not fallen asleep, the nurse wouldn’t have been able to rock her into an endless sleep and Heather’s love as her mother may have magically worked to save her life.
“This is a really shitty event,” her doctor had said sadly.
As unprofessional as it sounded, the words were sincere and heartfelt. Heather had prayed fervently for God to spare her unborn child and when He hadn’t, had envisioned an angry entity bringing vengeance down upon her.
Her minister, Pastor Eric, had stopped in to visit with her in the hospital room and to pray with her. She remembered the sadness in his eyes when he looked down into the tiny, empty crib. She had never even been able to kiss her daughter on the head and place her in the bassinet beside her.
“Why does God hate me?” she had cried.
“He doesn’t hate you, Heather. He loves you very much,” her pastor had answered.
“Then why did He let this happen?”
“You know the answer to that,” he answered.
“Oh right, free will. I almost forgot what a gift that was,” she said bitterly.
“Free will is a gift,” he said gently.
“Oh, a gift!’ she bit back. “That must be why it feels so good.”
“Free will doesn’t always feel good. It can lead to the worst pain imaginable,” he shook his head. “Like this.”
“I think I’d give up free will right now if it meant holding my baby for five more minutes.”
“But then you wouldn’t be a real mother to her. You would just be a robot. Is that what you would want?” he had asked her.
“Yes! I would become a robot to get her back!’ she screamed.
Heather woke up beside Jack, screaming. She cut it off quickly so she wouldn’t wake everyone else but she couldn’t cut off the tears. She lay in bed, cuddling her healthy seven-year-old son and crying for the daughter she had never been able to bring home.