Trying to Get Lost.

If memory serves me correctly, today was my due date with Asher. Or maybe it was the 28th?? Ask my mother-in-law, she will know. She remembers every date of every thing that ever happens (it's like a super-power.) I can't remember because I don't put a lot of stock in due dates..... and so I wasn't super focused on a day as much as I was a block of time. This is when everyone around me started getting nervous....... somehow they all knew something wasn't right. But not me. I was basking in the glow of my son. I distinctly remember how very nervous Nolan, my mom, and Nolan's dad - Jim were. They had no real reason to be.... I was feeling fine, Asher was acting fine, the ultrasound I had the Monday before I had him said everything was perfect.
These last few weeks have been hard. I feel angry and sad and happy all at the same time. Having these intense emotions has caused me to start shutting down emotionally. I can detach emotionally and go into autopilot mode if I need to. However........ at some point during the week it all comes crashing down and I  am a mess for hours. Last Saturday I started to drive home from my in-laws, but instead drove way, way out into the country. I drove for almost an hour down narrow country roads trying to get as lost as possible (I cannot get lost, even when I try). I just kept driving. I kept thinking that I wanted to go somewhere that wanted me. I didn't want to be with people...... people need something from you...... and i had nothing left to give. But heaven didn't want me, if it did I'd be dead. My empty house didn't want me. I had been a wreck to be around all day and felt like my family didn't want (to be around) me. So I just kept driving. Who wants an emotionally volatile, grieving, exhausted, pregnant woman????? I wondered, and wondered: mentally and physically. The sun was to my back and it lit the dry corn and bean fields with that long, golden autumn light, which hints at the cold winter to come. I turned down every road I could turn on - purposely not looking at the road signs. Eventually I came to a tiny, old church with a small, old cemetery right next to it. At first I was going to go into the church.... but then the weather-beaten headstones of the oldest graves began to beacon me. They said, "We want you. Come see us." It's so difficult to describe..... part of me is buried in the ground with Asher. Part of me will never be satisfied with this life, always longing to go to my real home, my forever home. And part of me is in every cemetery that I pass. I know that an untold number of tears have been shed in each one. I know the sane insanity of disbelief when standing over a tombstone you picked out and paid for. I know the draw to walk near the body of the one you put in the ground.
As I walked around reading about those who had been buried I gravitated toward the back where the really old graves were. I discovered among them a sad, and terrible trio. The headstones told the story of 2 little girls and a baby boy from from the year 1834. I like the way they marked the stones back then. Nanny Cull died August 27. 1 year, 3 days. 1834. Next to her was her twin sister who died the next day. And next to her was their 12 day old brother who died one week later. So a mother gives birth to a son, 5 days later both of her twin daughters are dead, and a week after that so is her son. Three babies in the ground in less than 2 weeks. Did she loose her mind?? Did she ever have any other children?? What happened?? Who held her hand as she stood exactly where I was 177 years ago?
I left soon after my discovery. Knowing that others have stood where I was and cried and were angry too was helpful. I am not the first mother to loose her baby to an early grave, and I will not be the last. I got in my car and drove back to my in-laws..... never did get lost.