This is What a Private School Education Buys
Faith is a strange thing. For those who have it, everything that happens reinforces their belief. For those who don’t, a flame-breathing fairy could show them the hand of God Herself and they’d put it down to the hallucinogenic drugs they were slipped.
My brother and sister-in-law are religious people, so they see the loss of their baby as something that was destined, part of a greater plan. I asked my brother if he was angry. Angry? No, he said. I have no questions. I’m just sad. He explained that we can see and comprehend only a fraction of what is really going on, that the little soul of the baby was only meant to be here for the specific time that she was. That was enough to fufill her higher purpose. Those people in Mexico who live til 116 – they must have a whole lot of stuff their souls need to work out. I’m amazed at how calm my brother and sister-in-law are being. By amazed, I mean worried. They assure me that their belief doesn’t diminish their pain or sadness, it simply gives them a frame of reference within which to contexualise their loss.
Me, I’m just mad-angry. I’m if-onlying myself to bits.
If the Higher Being has a plan, I wish She’d let me in on it cos I have a whole lot of questions:
Questions for the Higher Being:
1. What ever happened to Milli Vanilli?
2. My fellow blogger and writer Ova Girl has been trying to have a baby for a while. If you had to build two ideal parents, her and her partner C would be them. Clever, loving, funny, kind, playful. Today I went to a far away part of the city. I saw a pram with a tiny set of week old twins sharing it. Each of them had a bottle in their mouths that they were desperately trying to suckle from. Being that they had no fine motor skills, they were spilling milk all over themselves. I looked up from the pram to see their mother, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, her eyes dead. She asked me if she could score some cash off me. The twins apparently needed a heroin fix. The desire to grab those babies and whisk them away from her overwhelmed me. She’d be relieved, wouldn’t she? It’s too much for her. There was another child hanging onto the pram who looked like he couldn’t stand to be alive a moment longer, like breathing was an effort he’d rather not make. I’d be doing her a favour. I’ll save these children before they get lost. I’ll give one to Ova Girl and one to my brother. Everyone will be happy.
Like Africans were happy when missionaries introduced them to Jesus.
I spent the trip home chastising myself for my middle class arrogance, for deigning to assume that I knew what was best for anyone. Another part of my brain was wondering if I’d get off kidnapping charges for mitigating circumstances. And there was a third bit, a little voice, that felt so sad for that mother who couldn’t see how beautiful these little souls were because her own reflection was bouncing off them.
What was my question again?
3. Why is it so hard to work out what I want?
4. For the last time, where the fuck is my other black sock?
My brother and sister-in-law are religious people, so they see the loss of their baby as something that was destined, part of a greater plan. I asked my brother if he was angry. Angry? No, he said. I have no questions. I’m just sad. He explained that we can see and comprehend only a fraction of what is really going on, that the little soul of the baby was only meant to be here for the specific time that she was. That was enough to fufill her higher purpose. Those people in Mexico who live til 116 – they must have a whole lot of stuff their souls need to work out. I’m amazed at how calm my brother and sister-in-law are being. By amazed, I mean worried. They assure me that their belief doesn’t diminish their pain or sadness, it simply gives them a frame of reference within which to contexualise their loss.
Me, I’m just mad-angry. I’m if-onlying myself to bits.
If the Higher Being has a plan, I wish She’d let me in on it cos I have a whole lot of questions:
Questions for the Higher Being:
1. What ever happened to Milli Vanilli?
2. My fellow blogger and writer Ova Girl has been trying to have a baby for a while. If you had to build two ideal parents, her and her partner C would be them. Clever, loving, funny, kind, playful. Today I went to a far away part of the city. I saw a pram with a tiny set of week old twins sharing it. Each of them had a bottle in their mouths that they were desperately trying to suckle from. Being that they had no fine motor skills, they were spilling milk all over themselves. I looked up from the pram to see their mother, a cigarette dangling from her mouth, her eyes dead. She asked me if she could score some cash off me. The twins apparently needed a heroin fix. The desire to grab those babies and whisk them away from her overwhelmed me. She’d be relieved, wouldn’t she? It’s too much for her. There was another child hanging onto the pram who looked like he couldn’t stand to be alive a moment longer, like breathing was an effort he’d rather not make. I’d be doing her a favour. I’ll save these children before they get lost. I’ll give one to Ova Girl and one to my brother. Everyone will be happy.
Like Africans were happy when missionaries introduced them to Jesus.
I spent the trip home chastising myself for my middle class arrogance, for deigning to assume that I knew what was best for anyone. Another part of my brain was wondering if I’d get off kidnapping charges for mitigating circumstances. And there was a third bit, a little voice, that felt so sad for that mother who couldn’t see how beautiful these little souls were because her own reflection was bouncing off them.
What was my question again?
3. Why is it so hard to work out what I want?
4. For the last time, where the fuck is my other black sock?
posted by Yidchick at 4:14 pm
4 Comments:
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I was leaving my nail salon, getting into my fancy car that I bought 3 years ago for all of the children that I would be having and I heard a baby crying a deep, troubled, heaving cry and I noticed that an old filthy car was parked beside mine and it had a trashy, angry looking man in his very early twenties sitting behind the steering wheel and I looked in the back seat and saw the baby, perhaps a 3 month old. It was hot that day and they only had the windows cracked and I could see how hot that baby was and she was sucking and sucking on the back of her hand ferociously, as if she was starving. She was screaming and crying and sweating and sucking her knuckles. He was ignoring her.
God, I wanted to ask him if I could please take that precious baby home with me. It just haunts me.
Yeah... this is so, you know.
I just don't know what the answer is to this one. My heart breaks for these children who will probably grow up, if they survive, to be just like like their parents.
This is a strange world.
xxx
Good, good posting. Oh, I found your black sock. It's in my dryer. Do you have my grey sock?
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