12-6-2009 - Tragedy

My mood while writing this blog: Terrible/ Shattered

Well girls, the last week and a half has been the hardest of my life. I need somewhere to write all this down, so unfortunately, this is the place. I hope I don't make anyone uncomfortable.

10 days ago one of my closest and dearest girlfriends was killed in a car accident on her way into town. She was 37 weeks pregnant and on her way to her antenatal check-up. Originally investigators suspected the baby was killed on impact, because there was a terrible mark on her belly, but the autopsy found that he wasn't harmed at all, he simply died because she did. It's so horrible. I've been in tears for days. I find that I can go to work and be half functional, but as soon as I get home, I can't stop thinking about it.

She and her partner bought a house and got engaged late last year, their baby boy was due on 24th of this month. Instead my friend, who is like a brother to me, has lost everything he loved. He is only 24, she was 23. How does this make sense.

Now every time I feel my baby kick, all I think of is what he will no longer have, him in that empty house, with the nursery almost finished, the antenatal appointment card on the fridge and his fiancee's wallet on the table. He stayed with family for a week after the accident, so I've only been back to their house once since she died ... I could barely hold myself together. I keep thinking about him, and what he's going through, and how my feelings wouldn't compare to his, but I miss her soo much. I keep thinking about ringing her, sending her a message, inviting them over to dinner, talking about when the baby will be born ...

How is it fair that they have lost so much, how is it fair that she didn't get to experience what she was so looking forward to. And all I can feel is guilt because I have my son, I have a (so far) healthy pregnancy, and my husband is by my side. Obviously none of us know what the future holds, but I am far less deserving than these two beautiful people were, and now they're torn apart.

Her funeral was earlier this week, but it was so surreal, and I'd cried so much the week before, I barely shed a tear. So many questions, so many what-if's, but no matter how hard you try, you can't change anything that's happened. The hardest part is convincing yourself that a perfectly happy, healthy, physically strong and beautiful person has died. I know she was healthy, I saw her with my own eyes two days before she died. We had plans to meet two days after the accident. She was fine, excited about the baby, absolutely gorgeous. So how do I admit that she was the one in that coffin. That she is no longer here. That I can't ask her to be the godmother of my baby, and I will never get to meet her little baby son.

We will never know what he looked like, ever.