Not Being Grateful

"Well, at least you have your boys" said my friend two years ago, trying to think of something to make me feel better.
Or the lady who had struggled to have her one child telling me that she had had to have IVF and that I should be "grateful for what I had"

Oh, that it were that easy! But it's really not.  I adore my boys. They are the reason I get up in the morning, the reason I carry on and in all honesty, if I didn't have them here, I'm not sure that I would have carried on.

It's not the case that if you have a lot of children, losing one here or there will have less of an impact on you.. The hole that they leave after they have gone is so much bigger than the the hole that was there before we had them. They come, these children and they put down deep roots in your heart. And when they are ripped away, you are left with a huge crater in the centre of your world and you are left, standing with your living children, teetering at the edge of the abyss.   The hole doesn't get filled in with the passage of time either. Perhaps the edges soften but the hollow remains.

I do hug my boys a little tighter now, worry more than I should when they are out of my sight, I fear more that I will lose them, because when things have gone very wrong, you lose faith in the statistics that lied and told you everything would be fine.

But grateful for this shattered life? No.