the elephant in the room

well, i will blog about it. i know some of you are waiting. however, it will be broken into various posts. it's too heavy, too hard, too much for one entry.

mattie, our niece, has been sick for quite some time. marc and i have anticipated her passing for quite some time. she made it to her 5th birthday, and while that was a miracle in itself, we feared she would pass away while i was in the hospital and i would not be able to be there.

the birth of our daughter came and went, and my mother in law left mattie's side to be here with me, because i thought i needed her.

claire was 16 days old. i took her to bed with me and took a nap while MIL watched jack. i woke up after 20 minutes and heard the dog barking horrifically. i screamed at her to shut the (#&@%) up and she stopped. not normal. then i heard a man's voice. not normal because MIL certainly does not have gentleman callers. i grabbed claire and headed down the stairs.

i found marc sitting on the bed and MIL's belongings packed. i heard her saying that she just needed to leave. i asked what was wrong - was everything okay? marc shook his head and MIL told me mattie was gone. i didn't understand....i asked if she had died. they said yes.

i sat down in the middle of the stairs, holding my brand new baby, and burst into tears. i shouted "i am sorry you were here with us and not with her!" and MIL told me not to be sorry, that this was a relief. it didn't feel so releiving to me. it felt as though my heart was being stepped on and my back was on fire. i asked who had been there with her?

as it turns out, mattie had been having a good day. she had no pain, which was very uncommon, ate a ton and did arts and crafts. she asked her daddy for a nap, and her mom decided it was safe to go shopping with her best friend. she left and mattie went down for her nap. duane, mattie's daddy, went to check on her and could tell immediately that she had gone.

when i learned that mattie's mom had missed her passing, i sobbed even harder. as a mother, i simply cannot fathom that feeling.

marc and i made some calls. some i could muster out, some i cried so hard i choked. we sent out texts, and updated facebook. the calls started pouring in. marc and i decided to go out for mexican, in honor of mattie's favorite restaraunt, and almost got caught in a tornado....and lost our brand new patio set in the madness. normally i would have had a FIT, but it paled in comparison to our new reality.

the worst part? jack would wipe off my tears and say "mama, no tears. mattie is coming to play."