Letters to the Editor
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Digging
It is very sad that the one dream you have invested in, so fully, must be let go. The Life you planned to have, thought about, imagined until it was almost real, can not happen the way you hoped. That is heartbreaking. But you know, you both must be very strong people. Because, when you have a dream together you do what ever you can to make it happen. You dig and you search and you try to find a way. What a wonderful skill. You will be able to use that strength to share your grief with each other. And you will be able to heal. Enough. And in the future you may decide to use the love and hope that you have had, for creating a family one way, to do something that is as important. Maybe as others have said, to create a family another way.
I am not a parent nor have I been in the specific place you are in, so I can't fully understand what you are feeling. But what I do share is the loss of some of my biggest dreams and having some of my worst fears materialize. Perhaps it is my age now that gives me the belief that Life is about negotiating between what we want and what we actually have, get, and help create. I know that if I concentrate on loving what I have rather then what I think I "should" have I am eventually able to take whatever Life has to offer, with gratitude and thanksgiving.
My Life has taken so many turns that it has, at times, resembled a ferris wheel with mad cow disease. It is really only lately, when I lost everything due to illness, that I found what was really the most important, for me. I have learned, at a deeper level then I would have chosen, that no matter what happens, no matter how I live, or what befalls me I will go on. And I realized that what was most important for me was not that "it" happened but how I deal with "it".
I insist on not becoming defeated for more then a few days. OK, maybe a week or two. After I have stomped and kicked, screamed and cried, blamed others and blamed God, and blamed myself, I eat a sandwich, take a nap, and then get up and do the next best thing in front of me. And I look for the pony.
I am referring to a story I love. I don't know who wrote it. I'm sure someone here does.
Some psychologists designed some tests for children. In one room they put one child in a room full of toys. After a few hours they went back to his room. They found toys broken and discarded and the child sitting and crying about where he was and how things didn't work right. In a very different room they found the other child with a shovel, whistling, and digging like crazy in a huge pile of horse manure. They asked the little kid what he was doing. And he said, with a smile, "With all this horse-sh@t there has to be a pony around here somewhere!"
I hope after you have done what it is you have to do, you get back up and start looking for the pony. And know that, if you don't fight it, you will find that pony. But, it just might look very different then you expected.
Blessings and Peace.