Words Come More Easily

The doorbell rings and I quickly answer it, hoping it's Keith to clean our gutters. Trees have been growing in the troughs again, and neither DH nor I have a love of ladders. It's not Keith, it's college undergrad selling children's "educational" materials.

"Hello, I'm here to talk with folks who have children."

"Ah, sorry, we don't have children." I step back to close the door with a smile.

"Well, then," he offers me an elbow, "congrats you escaped that."

"Oh, no," I keep my elbows to myself, "We had a child, but she died. We don't have any children living in our home."

He drops his elbow and stares at me, and stammers.

"Oh, oh, I'm sorry. I . . . "

"Thank you. How can I help?"

There's some part of me that tries to save the individual who's drowning in his/her own assumptions that if you have children--whoo hoo, and if you don't--whoo hoo. No one expects someone to merely explain that they have a dead child. But, you know what, I'm not silent anymore. Screw you, public. Live in your own sterile world. Mine is not sterile and I won't participate anymore. Words come more easily now. Caitlin has been gone nearly 3 years, but she's firmly entrenched in my life.

"Well, I'm a college intern, selling these children's educational books. Could you help me with which of your neighbors have children." He shows me a map of my neighborhood.

I predict he will be fine, if not highly successful, in his business endeavors. After all, he just learned to ask the dead baby mama about all the other parents with living children in the neighborhood. I comply.

"Neighbor next door is single (just suffered a divorce). Across the street and behind us are two widows (both who lost their husbands tragically after our daughter died). The neighbors next to them moved away because they lost their house in the flood, but the house next to theirs, the one that's for sale---they have loads of kids (that mom, dad, and in-laws yell at constantly, and the youngest screams daily at the top of his lungs)."

"Ah, thanks. . . I don't mean to be a pain, but we didn't bring any water with us. Do you have a bottle of water?"

I give him a bottle of water and send him on his way. Next time I answer the bell, I hope it's the college interns who offered deck washing and staining---oh, and powerwashing for siding.