Little Triggers....

Grief triggers...they can come out of nowhere.  It always amazes me how they can seemingly come from thin air and be all consuming immediately.  I am lucky that I don't have many things that bring these on for me, unlike Austin's mom who has to deal with the feelings everyday from seeing something as simple as a little boy with brown hair or an icee machine, but I had it happen the other night.  

Anna and I decided to have a little "date" and go see Annie Jr at the school up the street.  We had our popcorn and were all set in our seats, when I looked a few rows in front of us and there she was.  My number 1 grief trigger, a virtual stranger.  There is a woman who is about my age.  She was sitting with her daughter who is about Anna's age, maybe a little younger.  When I was pregnant with Connor she was pregnant.  Every Sunday we went to St. Dominic for mass and every Sunday she and her husband sat in the same pew, two sections over.  As my belly grew each week I watched hers grow.  For 7 months I went to mass every single Sunday, for seven months I watched her pregnancy progress along with mine.  Then one Sunday she wasn't there.  I figured she had gone into labor and I was secretly both loathing and excitedly anticipating the week she would return...and she did.  With her husband, her daughter and her two baby boys.  Twins.  I have to admit part of me had the "it's not fair, why does she get 2" thought passing through my head, but alas I knew that was silly.  As I went to mass for the next 3 weeks of my pregnancy I saw them come and go each week.  Blissfully happy and blissfully unaware of me sitting 2 sections over watching them each week.  

After I had Connor we decided to try and go back to Mass.  Sitting in the same pew I had sat and prayed in for the last 8 months somehow felt different.  Glancing over to see this family, this woman and her babies, while I sat with T.J. as we tried to heal our broken hearts, I decided that this wasn't where I needed to be anymore.  As much as the mass had helped me through my pregnancy it reminded me of too much to be a happy place anymore.

It has been 3 years since then.  This woman lives near me, knows people I know, seems to be many places I go and yet every time I see her I get this pang in my gut.  This reminder of what coulda, woulda, shoulda, might have been..... I wonder if she has ever noticed me.