Sent To Me

I had heard it before, that someone has said "you were sent to me today". When I hear it, I have to stop and think, "were you sent to me today"?  I met Cindy today. My neighbor in THE brick house on the hill two houses up. My DREAM house that I walk by and imagine owning some day. The brick house sits high up on the hill overlooking all of Fountain City and the Mississippi River. And Cindy lives there. I was at the dentist this morning. A new office that I had not been too before and Cindy was my hygenist. After she confirmed which house I live in and that we are indeed neighbors we started to gossip about the small town and had a few hearty laughs. Half an hour later we decide that she better get cleaning my teeth and we made plans to finish the talk over coffee at her house and I'd get the grand tour. I am laying down and my mouth is wide open and she starts to work on my teeth and she asks the question that always stalls me while I try to decide how to answer. How many children do you have? My mouth was full so all I really got out was "boy and twins". Next question..."were the twins a surprise"? As we all know, when I am in a doctors office I always spill my guts, so of course I give her the correct answer. "Yes, it was a shock. We lost a full term baby girl and six weeks later I was pregnant with twins." Cindy didn't say a word. My eyes were closed because I always close my eyes and grip the chair at the dentist. I opened one eye, then the other. Her head is right over me and her eyes were all clear and glassy. And she whispered, I lost three. THREE!!! Yes, three full term baby girls. At this point she gets right to working on my teeth and she talks. I think she left all the gear in my mouth on purpose because she didn't need me to say a word back, just to listen. Now, Cindy is at least 50 plus years old. And I know she hasn't talked about her three babies in a long time. Because she needed to talk. She told me how her marriage barely survived, and how she knew her husband wanted a large family so despite the risks she kept trying to give him that large family. After baby girl three her doctor said, Cindy no more. All three little girls went to science. She never held one of them. With baby girl number two, she found out on a Sunday that she had died. Her husband was out of town, so she waited for three days to have a csection. She went to work for three days and never told anybody! And after each child lost she continued on with work and life not telling anybody what happened. To this day people who knew her back then think she has four living children. All I could think was that this amazing woman has gone through life with no memorials, no trees planted, no pictures, no memories of holding her daughters, no urns, no ceremonies, no songs. And her heart is heavy, so so heavy. My appointment ended. I wanted to get up and give Cindy a hug, but she moved fast and I knew her mind was elsewhere. As I was making my next appointment she came back to me and touched me and said "there are six hygienists here, and I got assigned to you. I needed you today. You come see me."

 I am thankful for and dearly love my friends and family for allowing me to talk and for not making me feel shamed that Simone died. ~Thank you.