God Giveth God Taketh Away

For some reason I still don't feel that lying around the house crying sadness. But rather, a very intense painful and boiling rage; a looking forward to biting the head off of anyone who crosses my path kind of rage. Looking forward to it. Welcoming disagreement for a chance to take a swing or burst another into the kind of tears I should be shedding by now. Normally the gentle gregarious and oh so very social Ambassador. Now I seethe. Ready to pounce. This event has brought out the worst in me. Someone I know well, but have not seen in many years. When I was a boy, we knew each other very well. Best friends. Brothers in arms. We used to fight every chance we got. I tore the faces off of every kid I had the chance to with my fists back in school. I was the king of cynicism, vandalism, self destruction, and tearing people down. A rebel with many causes. The angry young man, but not the Billy Joel type (who the hell sings high soaring melodies when truly angry?), but more of the Clash, Sex Pistols, Iggy and the Stooges type. Decades have passed since those fiery days and that aspect of self had seemed to pass along with them. Or so I thought. Every now and then, he returns.

And so once again he is here. I am. So he is. So I am. United once again. Breathing and seething together as one. We need each other now. During moments like this. For sometimes life is wicked and cruel. Slaps us down like the pathetically arrogant while still unknowingly ignorant tree climbing bug eating home destroying parasites we are. Such is life for the lost baggage that we truly are. Left to live or die, fend for ourselves, suffer, groan, cry, scream, kill or be killed. Left for dead on a giant rock that floats in the middle of nowhere in what appears to be empty space. When I contemplate our fate, I welcome my new-found old friend.

Princess Little Tree falls into a puddle of tears, face soaking wet, sobbing, a few times every hour. But I don't. I am a desert. I am a weed-covered hauntingly deserted wall of no emotion. Red brick turned black from soot. Angry acerbic biting vicious cutthroat and cynical. Waiting to pounce. Hence I write. There is not much more I can do. Yesterday I was walking down the sidewalk with both shoulders held wide and broad to protect the pregnant Princess from all the thousands of people we share the city with; she who was holding my hand and walking just behind me. She who was holding our two newest members of our family in her beautiful little belly. Today there is no need for this protection we are told. It is a sudden shocking realization. Just like that. In simple terms, we are no longer pregnant. Some people call it miscarriage. Though this early on.... who knows what to call it. What I do know is that I have a printout of a microscopic photograph of our two precious twin embryos and they were living inside of her perfect body. Now they are not. She has not miscarried yet. In typical fashion. No blood. No pain. Just no more HCG, the hormone which indicates pregnancy.



The first question that comes to mind when hearing of such a fate is always the same: “So where ARE our babies?” If we are not pregnant, then where are our babies? We SAW them. We felt their presence in our home. We watched the Princess grow and grow and develop all the symptoms typical of a woman pregnant in her first trimester. So where are our babies? It is a hard question to answer. Our doctor, a man so endeared to us and vice versa that he attended our wedding, finds the question scientifically impossible to answer. He can only quote statistics and other scientific data and tell us what a good job we’ve all done, how beautiful a couple we are, and how one day soon we will indeed be celebrating the birth of one of the many of our children.

There is nothing like the feel of pregnancy. The feel of being pregnant. I'm referring to pregnancy from the man’s side. From the husband’s side. The father’s side. We seem to glow just as much as the women who are pregnant do. Proud. Protective. Lion-hearted. Head held high. Shoulders back. Chest out. Our pregnant wives feel like cherished treasures to us. Objects to behold in awe, hold delicately, and speak softly to. To pamper, adore, and protect above all other things. How many times in the last three weeks have I sternly grabbed hold of a driver, looked him in the eye and asserted “My wife is pregnant. You need to drive slowly... and smooth... Do you understand?” (New York City drivers are all from somewhere else EXCEPT the United States. Indian, Pakistani, Syrian, Israeli, South American, Chinese, but never American. And they almost never speak English. No matter how many times you request it from the dispatcher. You still end up with a driver who cannot tell you “I'll be there in three minutes” in coherent understandable English.) So one has to look them in the eye when you get into the car with your precious cargo. Gently lifting your lady’s hand up and in. Then eyes dart to the driver, serious, focused, predatorial: “Hello. Hey, listen. Wife pregnant.” Pointing to wife.... “So no hitting the gas, no hitting the brakes, no weaving in and out of traffic. Just smooth driving. Do you understand?” Luckily we use a service that understands and values repeat business from frequent clients. For we have rarely had an upset once we let the driver know our situation.

It seems to me that there is something nearly transcendental about a pregnant woman in regards to other people’s reaction to it. Something ethereal and mysterious happens to almost 99% percent of humankind when they learn you are pregnant. For more than a month now Princess Little Tree and I have conversed with people all over the world about our latest blessed news and good fortune and the reaction one receives from others is always predictably elated and excited; sometimes surprised, but always near intoxicating joyful. And so for weeks now, we have been riding this high, for we as everyone else knew what a miracle it was. She the beautiful little mother hen, growing a wee bit plumper and prettier everyday. Me the gallant bold warrior placed on the earth itself to do everything in my power to guard and protect her and the little ones growing inside of her. Or so we thought.

This time it was twins. Not sure if they were boys or girls yet. But you easily find yourself playing “name that gender” as soon as you find out you are pregnant. It’s one of the many fun and blissful aspects of the experience. Twins. Imagine that. Twins. My God. Look at the beautiful precious little Princess and her belly. What a marvel she is. What a beauty. I had no problem playing husband and housewife. Her soft regal demeanor and glowing beauty, combined with the delicate state the doctor told us she was in, compelled me to. Easily. With our particular pregnancy, primarily due to the slim chance of a woman becoming pregnant at her age, we both knew, everyone knew, that it was nothing short of a miracle. Friends, family and fans alike cheered us on with well wishes and positive vibes via text messages, phone calls, Facebook and Twitter. The Princess is pregnant with twins was the battle cry. And it felt good.

Doctor’s appointment today. Just a routine checkup we were to believe. To see how our babies were doing. Two beautiful living breathing embryos cellular dividing at a rapid pace, not quite fetuses yet. But soon. Life creating. Deep inside her. Precious love. Manifest through the creation of two more souls to join us on our blessed journey.

The office staff at the center were all excited. As they always are. For whatever reason -- and this is more often the case than not for Princess Little Tree and me -- though we aren't sure why but sure are grateful for it -- they love us to death; we can really feel they are on our side. They want it as much as we do. We can feel it. More than anything for us to make many beautiful babies together. One of our nurses who has been working for us now for over six months told us during one of our many routine ultrasounds, “I've been doing this for four years now and I've seen thousands of couples. You can tell the real ones from the rest you know,” she casually tells us in a thick Jamaican accent.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“ You are the real thing. You two. The way he holds your bag over his shoulder and your hand in his, the way you look at him when he isn't looking. The trust between you. The way he holds your hand during every ultrasound. Most husbands don't even come with their wives for all their appointments....”
“Really?” we ask. I couldn’t imagine not being with Princess Little Tree on one of her appointments... though I also understand that I am a young man, new to marriage. And therefore want to do things that older more experienced husbands may not anymore. So I take the comment in stride. Though it does help explain the exuberant response we receive everytime we enter the confines of their little womb of life creation in the heart of Manhattan. Sophia is from Jamaica. She is superstitious. Which contradicts and tends to bump up against my super-optimism. Despite our pregnancy, Sophia always refuses to speak of it, afraid we will jinx it. Perhaps it comes with the job.

When I first walked the Princess into the doctor’s office a month ago, I was more like a proud soccer coach. “So... we’ve done it again doc! Whaddaya think of the little Princess now?” I exclaimed as he put on his rubber gloves in order to examine her.
“So how is the Mother hen feeling?” he asked her in his rogue South African accent.
“I feel good,” she said. “I feel big!” Yes she was bigger. Plump more like it. But delightfully so. Persian Goddess face aglow. Sweet. Always sweet.
“She's got all the signs Dr. B. Check it out. This time, I'm telling you, it’s gonna be twins!” I announce excitedly. Sure enough it was. More than twins. But that’s another story for another time.


Yesterday we were told that we’d hear back in two hours with the latest test results. But no call came in. Princess Little Tree began to get worried. I not at all. I was already sure we were fine and on our way to our own private “Eight Is Enough.” At six PM on the dot we got a call. It was Dr B himself. Uh oh. “Fishy can you hear me?” he asked, his voice somber. I knew then that it wasn't good news. If it had been he would not have been able to keep it in so long nor would he feel a need to wait for me to get on the phone with the Princess. “I know this is hard on you both, but Princess Little Tree you are no longer pregnant. The test results were negative.” The Princess burst into tears. Her face crinkling all up like a child.
“That’s impossible!” I shouted back over the iPhone’s speaker. “Of course she is! What were the scores?!” Yes, I continued to argue back and forth with the good doctor as boldly and rebelliously as anyone who knows me knows I am capable of. Taking down every single test score number of every single test, scribbling madly with a pen on a piece of scrap paper.

But suffice it to say, that was the proverbial that. Princess Little Tree fell to the floor and started sobbing... like a little girl. I go to her, wrapped my arms around her and started rocking her while she cried It out. I lift her up and set her on our new brown leather reclining smoking chair, the one every man longs for his entire life. She cries and cries. All of our effort for naught. I am in shock. She finally speaks. “I'm so sorry. I am so sorry. I am so sorry I am doing this to you honey,” she sobs. “I'm so sorry I'm putting you through this.”
“Honey, what are you talking about? You're not doing anything to me! This is our life. This is us. This is something that has happened to us. Something we created together and discreated together... You aren’t doing anything to me. You were amazing babe!” I try to calm her down.
“But this is because of me and my age. And we both know it,” she cries out, tears shooting out of her eyes. “I know how much you want a big family with children of your own....” just more tears and tears.
“Goddamnit this is bullshit!” I shout. “I know you are freaking still pregnant!”
“Honey please... your language.”
“I'm sorry Princee, you're right. No excuse, forgive me. But listen, for all we know, this has nothing to do with you. This could have everything to do with ME. Maybe my sperm are just messed up from living the rock and roll lifestyle for so many years....” I try to say whatever I can to calm her down.
“Honey Joon,” (she calls me, meaning “dear one” in Farsi), “one-hundred and fifty eight million sperm per milliliter? I don't think it’s your sperm... you were tested. Your sperm are never going to be an issue. Our babies are fertilized babies. It’s not your sperm. It’s my eggs... and we know it. And I didn't want this for you honey. I know how much you want it....” she continues to cry... she is torn up, wrecked.
“I know. honey. I do. And I want it with you. With your eggs. Your family tree. Your bloodline. That's why I married YOU. But that does not mean that this is your fault in any way. You did everything you could possibly do Princess. Everything. you didn't even leave the apartment for almost a month! You didn't take a shower for two weeks! What more could we have done? Nothing! You did everything you could do. Period. So you have nothing to be sorry for. But cry honey. Cry. Let it out,” I can see myself from above kneeling there beside her holding and rocking her but I feel nothing but a seething anger deep within my belly.

The time comes where we have to call family now. Our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, friends and loved ones all over the world... all joyfully assuming that we’ve reached that next stage of marriage; excited for us and the beginning of our new family... They all need now to be informed of the news and let down just as we have been. Every phone call and conversation will be filled with tears on both sides. This will be a brutally painful and very real human 72 hours. I do not welcome it.

I still feel like a statue. A computer that has frozen and is only capable of but a few simple tasks. I can eat, picking at food on the plate, taking a bite now and then... I can drink, walk – like a zombie I walk, talk when I am forced to (but still feel ready to snap at the first person who speaks anything that remotely sounds disagreeable to my own sense of things). It took two full valiums to finally knock my mind and body out last night. I lay in bed until 5:30 AM staring into the darkness, up at the ceiling. Not sad. Unlike the Princess, who continued to wake up and cry every half hour or so. Me I'm just dead. Blank. Eventually I must have dozed off.

But no, I do not long to speak to my family nor the Princess’s, nor do I care to listen to their words of consolation or console their own grief. I am well aware that “God has his plan” and that “everything happens for a reason” and “it will work out in the end don't worry.” I could write a blog a day with all those millennia-old platitudes that we tell ourselves to ease the burden of being alive in this chaotic universe and still not feel that any of them are true, nor feel the better for it. The only thing that would make me feel better would be for Princee to still be pregnant.

“C'mon,” I shout, an hour or so after we got the news.
“Where are we going?” she shyly asks still sniffling.
“Downstairs to buy a freaking pregnancy test. I just don't believe that we aren't pregnant anymore. I just can’t believe it.”
“I know. Me either. I still have all the symptoms...”
We stroll through the drug store downstairs below our apartment like zombies. Nothing looks interesting. There is a numbness that takes over you when you receive such a blow. Grab the test. Stare blankly at the same girl behind the counter who has served us hundreds of times in the past as if we’ve never seen her before in our lives. She must sense something is wrong. She doesn’t even look at me in the eye. I must appear to be as upset on the outside as I am on the inside. I notice as we walk out of the store my body automatically go to protect Princess Little Tree as I had been for the last three weeks from all the other pedestrians. And then it occurs to me. “We were just told that she is no longer pregnant. My God. So what does this mean? No more paranoid overbearing chivalry? Just let her do as she pleases as if she were really not pregnant?” But I cannot. Not yet.

We run upstairs and immediately open the wrapper to take the test. How many times had I been in this position hoping for exactly the opposite result? The irony. Cursed self. Wretched self. Three minutes in and the generic store bought pregnancy test confirms Dr. B’s diagnosis. Not pregnant. Though I continue to stare at the test hour after hour as if it is going to somehow miraculously change and turn into a positive. But no such luck.

“God I'm a fool!” I shout. “I'm fucking asking us last night what are their middle names?!?! We’re trying to figure out Katherine Olivia versus Olivia Katherine for two fucking hours! And for all we know they had already died. Weren't even inside of you anymore.... I feel like such an idiot!”
“You aren't a fool honey,” the Princess consoles me. “We didn't know...”

Then rage hits me. I go into my office to smash things. Anything. Everything. Smashing things usually makes me feel good.”Don't go smash things Prince Baby Joon” the Princess calls out to me, “go outside and take a walk.” But off I tread into my office. But for some strange reason I couldn’t get myself to smash a thing. Granted, I need everything that is in my office. My precious guitars are in there... I had this moment of epiphany that it just wouldn’t accomplish anything. Whether I felt too dejected or have just evolved to a higher state of beingness I am not sure. But I shared with Princess Little Tree when I returned to our room that “I understand what Abraham is talking about now. With the news that we were just given, we see what we don't want. And by seeing what we don't want, we more clearly see what we do want. This contrast hurts. But it makes things more clear. To be sure. I can drag my physical self through the mud of what we don't want and continue to vibrate that. Or I can head in the direction of what we do want and continue to vibrate that. Despite the news of the contrary. I felt that to be destructive when mourning the destruction, or lack of creation, of something would only perpetuate more of what we don't want. If anything it would only intensify my already agonized heart.

It was a good idea. Because the whole time I'm in shock, the Princess is still crying.... hour after hour. Sobbing, gasping for breath in between giant undulations and heaving of her cute little chest. That cute little chest with those enlarged and extra tender breasts that assured us that surely our pregnancy was in the bag. But what now? What to make of them? Why all these symptoms? How can we be pregnant with two beautiful little baby embryos and then not be? Where are they now? That of course is the million dollar question for millions of couples who have been through this before.


I pass out at 7PM from sheer exhaustion; flat on my back, on the bed, crawled under the sheets up to my chin and just pass out, mouth gaping open. The mental and emotional anguish feels crushing. I can’t quite let it out, but I also can’t seem to physically bear it any longer. So I just pass out.


The princess wakes me up at 8:30 “Honey Joon you wanna wake up?” she calls to me.
“What time is it?”
“It’s 8:30. You won't sleep tonight if you keep sleeping now...”
“I won't sleep either way,” I answer.
“I know. Neither will I,” she replied. “But we have to try to be strong my love,” she whispers. I lean up on my elbow shivering cold from the air conditioning sipping hot coffee... I begin to mumble, still unable to open my eyes.
“We did EVERYTHING. Everything! I just can’t believe this. We have to start the whole process over...” I complain.
“I know...” she whimpers, still half alive and half drowning in tears.
“ I mean, we kept you in a horizontal position for three freaking weeks! You didn't even shower! What the fuck?!?! This is just so not fair. It can’t be you. It can’t be your fault. Or your body. it has to be the eggs. Or the doctor. Or something. It’s not YOU,” I shout into the stifling air that feels like it is slowly suffocating us.

Later, much later, I start putting my shoes on. It’s well past 1 AM.
“Are you going somewhere?” Princess Little Tree asks me nervously.
“I just gotta get outta here. It’s so freaking hot and stifling. I can’t breathe,” I mumble.
“Do you want to go alone?” she asks.
“No, of course not. You come with babe. Always. We’ll call my mom.”
“I already talked to her tonight,” she tells me.
“I know. I could hear you while I was sleeping... did she make you feel any better?” I ask.
“Yes. She did. She said that we never know what God has in store for us two... we just have to wait it out...”
Walking out the door I said, “I just don't get it. I CREATED THIS! I mean, no secondaries, I CREATED that “We are pregnant with two beautiful little healthy babies!” using Avatar tools. So what happened? I just don't get it... I had NO secondaries! (anything other than what one is creating; or better put anything that might prevent one from creating something).
We pause. And then “But I just heard a message in my head “She IS pregnant with two beautiful little healthy babies Fishy... just not NOW. But she will be. You are right. You did create it. And you will experience it.”
“Oh my God, Baby Joon! I just heard the same exact thing in my head too!” Princess Little Tree exclaims.
“You did?”
“Yes! Just now. I heard the SAME message.”
Wow. We smile. We begin to walk. Dark and empty streets mostly. But still more activity than one would see anywhere else in the world at this time of night.

“Listen babe, better this than we bring our children into the world with genetic abnormalities that make their lives a burden of suffering. This I don't know how we would bear. Perhaps as some say we are being selfish... trying to use our own eggs... they are though our eggs to use, your eggs, and as long as you want to keep trying, I'm willing to do it, but maybe we are so strong, so powerful, so connected with God, with Source, that he knows what is best for us all, and he knows what he is doing in this case as well...” I continue to share with her.
“I agree honey. I was thinking the same thing. It is like we are being protected. It is hard to bear. But perhaps there really is a silver lining here that we are not seeing. One thing I am seeing is that Princess Little Tree and I are eternal optimists. Mere hours after hearing that we miscarried twin babies we are already starting to move in the direction of looking at the bright side.


We hit the corner of Broadway and 96th St. Its nearly 2 AM in the morning but the city still breathes life into our bodies. The lights, the cars, a slight but cool wind blows through us; half the stores still open and lit up.
“God I love it here,” I say, taking big deep breaths.” Just feel this. This is why we needed to get out. Just to feel this.”
“We just needed some fresh air. It feels good,” she agrees. Not in the least frightened of where we are or how late it is. The Princess trusts me implicitly.
We go to one of my favorite neighborhood hotspots, this giant “bodega” that sells fresh flowers. Lots of them. So we begin to buy flowers. Lots of flowers. All light colors. Gerbers, roses, carnations, Astor lilies... I make a comment that it is as if we are buying flowers to honor our little ones who have passed on. She cries again. I hold her. Feel her chest heaving in and out. Her tears smearing on my cheek.

We were going to call them Kate and Leopold. From the movie. Olivia and Leonidas were their original names way back when we first started realizing that we were going to be married one day and have babies. But for some reason, these two just didn't fit those names so we named them Kate and Leopold... whenever we spoke of them. Though I already felt bad for Leopold and how much he’d be made fun of in school.

“You know sweetie,” I comment into the thick muggy air around us, Karmically speaking, I almost see this as us just working with these beings, helping them... we’ve miscarried several times now this year since we’ve been trying. Each time we were excited, thrilled, sure of it, hopeful at the least, and each time they leave us in a few weeks. Perhaps we are just helping these beings come in for all they want or need out of a life experience and it is just a few short weeks. Then they leave,” I finish.
“I like this thought. While they are here, inside of me, they experience more love then anyone could ever expect or want... from our love together Baby Joon, from our loving each other and loving them...” she adds.
“And maybe that’s all they need, is just a few weeks to finish off some karmic obligation and then they pass. We are helping in that. One day soon OUR babies, our children will come in and stay with us” I say feeling more positive.
“I know. I feel it. I love that idea honey,” she cries and grabs onto my arm with both of her small hands, puts her head on my shoulder and cries some more. We are squatting next to a bucket of hydrangeas and peonies in the middle of the sidewalk on the Upper West Side at 2 AM in the morning on a very quiet New York weeknight... It is odd. Painfully odd. But it is also very New York.... we are safe here. Safe in that we belong here. More than any other place in the United States, New York is home now. One of the only places where you would never give a second glance to two people huddled together squatting on a sidewalk next to a bucket of flowers crying...


Later, much later. we are still awake.
She's crying. Again. sobbing. Weeping. She looks like a little girl. Never a women. Often times a lady. But inside she's always a little girl. My little girl. The girl I love more than anything else in the world, right up there with mom and Brother John and the five nieces.
“Are you tired? Or just sad?” I whisper to her.
“Both...” she cries some more. “I just want some kind of a sign... just some sign of what has happened and what will happen. “I feel like such a fool,” she cried, echoing my exact words hours earlier. It’s nearly 4AM. Princess Little Tree eventually passed out crying... just laying there crying in bed next to me while I held her. Eventually fell asleep. Longing “for a sign...” She woke up a few minutes ago. “Aren't you tired yet honey?” I'm hunched over my laptop on the bed in the dark typing away like a madman. If I don't get it down, I will surely end up dead or in prison, for the pain is so unbearable to me that I feel like writing may be my only way out of its clutches or else I am going to do something mad. I imagine myself shooting half the people I know.

But instead I write. Safer.
“No. I'm just not tired babe. I’m sorry. Do you want me to stop writing?”
“No. You go ahead lovey,” she tells me.

Truth is, I feel almost nothing. Not yet. Like shock I guess. Like someone in my family has just died, or as if my leg has been blown off in battle and I just can’t feel it yet. in fact, I still feel as though we are pregnant for some reason... and that this is just part of a temporary bad dream. I don't know why, but I don't feel anything at all. Just a very strong subtle seething rage and anger deep inside of me, and then on top of that, a hope that this too has a plan, a purpose, and that underneath the blatant sadness and unfairness and sudden grief of it is some kind of master plan or purpose that is going to make it all better. But this thought doesn’t do much for me. I throw my body back to the bed forcefully, rejected, “Oh lord, where are our babies?!”

“I find myself in such a depression that I look at a bag of Twizzlers and don't feel a desire to eat one,” I tell her (One assumes from this passage that “Twizzlers” must be something the lead character in our story adores, such as how women adore chocolate or ice cream...)
“I know honey. I have noticed. You're just depressed,” she says. “Let it out my love, let it out.” But I cannot. All of our dreams disappeared with one phone call. All of our work. Weeks and weeks of injections to prime her body and make it fertile. Her belly and buttocks black and blue for weeks, like a minefield or a battle field. “How do we recover from this?” That is what keeps going through my mind and coming out of my mouth. “How do we overcome this grief?”

We wake up crying. Dawn hits. Too early. But it is too late. The reality of the events of the day before already begin to sneak into our consciousness... both of us with our hands in more jobs, careers, projects, non-profits than ten people should comfortably be. On top of it, we are in the final stages of buying a new house. Now is not the time to lay in bed and cry. But for a brief spell it is all we can do.

The Princess tells me this morning over coffee that she is amazed that though I am in mourning, I am doing a great job at it, that it is an expanded type of mourning.... it does not appear at least from the outside to be a debilitating depression compared to what one would normally feel in this situation, not if compared to what we have experienced before.
“Perhaps it is because you are writing about it, allowing yourself to feel it through writing, but it’s very admirable how you're handling it honey,” she says. I find this a strange comment since I have been a vicious angry faced monster for most of the last 12 hours.
“I have no choice honey. That's the thing. I have no choice. You are my wife. You are the girl of my dreams. YOU are my soulmate. I married YOU. I want to have children with YOU; I would do anything to have a bunch of babies with you, anything. I want to have a large family with YOU, so we have encountered a secondary, a bump in the road, a slight obstacle, but I have no choice but to keep on moving forward in the direction our Primary” (goal/desired outcome in Avatar-speak).

And yes, writing like I do really helps. Feels as though I am accomplishing something. Anything other than just moving on and forgetting about it. Or acting like I have forgotten about it. Or as if I am trying to forget about it. It is too early on for me to want to forget about it.

So there it is. For friends. For family. For fans. For posterity. But most importantly for our own sanity. There is nothing like the act of writing it out to relieve the pain or pressure; at least for those of us who write. Reading seems to give similar such relief. For those of us who read. Princess Little Tree seems to benefit as much from my act of writing as I do. Which gladdens my heart. She always has. Last night just before she retired for the evening she logged off of Facebook and read my last Status Update and burst into tears, which is what eventually tired her out enough to fall asleep. It was as if in 420 characters I had managed to express something that had been crawling around inside of both of us, unspoken, and once let out, she could let some more of her pain out. I held her and stroked her hair, but my own pain... still too far removed.

White Bear was one of the few real alive people in my personal life who gave me the gift of reading and writing. Shared his own passion for it with me. It is not a surprise that twenty years later he too has his own popular blog. The two of us galloping on our steeds through life side by side – though perhaps a few thousand miles apart spatially. Reuniting with him once more I can again feel him in consciousness as I do with all who I consider close friends. In the dead of the night, or early morn as it was, I read his response to my last Status Update: “Talk to me my old friend” he wrote. If he had any idea how much that simple sentence meant to this stone heart of mine.

Father Bloopy commented simply by typing two sad faces. Again. Simple gestures. But enough to make me feel again, as I have many many times in the past, that the next person who talks shit about Facebook and how horrible they think it is should get the hell off of it and shut the hell up. For if they cannot create positive experiences with something or someone, chances are it has nothing to do with the other person or thing, and everything to do with how they are interacting with it. Like writing, hence the popularity of and love we have of blogs and blogging at this revolutionary time in our lives, this new Age of Personal Expression as I call it, Facebook and other social networks have become the new fabric of a giant virtual blanket which we all collectively use to keep ourselves warm and toasty and dry from all the rain. And I like sitting wrapped up warm and cozy inside of this virtual blanket with my friends; and even with perfect strangers.

Pregnancies happen. Or else no one would be alive to read or write this. Sometimes a blessing. Sometimes a curse. Many have experienced both sides of this coin. Miscarriages happen too. Hardly feels like a blessing now. But through the fog of my pain I still somehow cannot help but mutter (when I find the rare moment when able to speak) to the Princess or just to myself staring off into the space before me “You know, I bet this is some kind of blessing in disguise... and we just don't know it yet.” That's the best I can muster right now. And that’s o.k. We are alive. More than anything I need to be there for Princess Little Tree. My love. We will make it though this too. You’ll see. We always have.