Since people want to hear a sad story.

I've written this once before. A very similar story. Since August 2010, it seems as though so many movies are coming out about children dying. Back in January I watched The Rabbit Hole starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart. I wrote about what I thought of the movie here.

http://fraserlifeunfolding.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-brick.html



Tonight, I made my second attempt in watching a movie where a baby dies. "The Other Woman" with Natalie Portman. But here is the thing that I wonder... Who writes these stories? Who sits down types out a manuscript based on their ideas or theory's on what exactly is must be like to loose a child?

The Other Woman, goes against so many... Okay, almost all of my moral values. The setting takes place after a woman sets her sites on a married man at work, and knowing he has a family, sets out to pursue him otherwise. A business meeting turns into a heated affair, where she winds up pregnant with his second child. After divorcing his wife, and remarrying his pregnant "mistress", they try to squeeze his eight year old son into their new life after loosing their newborn daughter from SIDS.

Not only did I feel the step mother mistreated his son, I felt as though the little boy wasn't allowed to, and wasn't helped in the grieving of his baby sister either. Not always does a baby die in a family without other children. And as parents, grieving parents at that, we have to put our children and their heartache above our own. Unfortunately for this story line, being she wasn't his biological mother, she showed that she had very little concern for the child that was not hers. And at times you felt as though, she had hatred towards the little boy that he survived and her baby didn't. It would have completed the picture perfect life she set out to find when she interferred with another family. Not to say that the married man wasn't equally to blame. Because he was. There is never any excuse for that.

This is the second movie now, that threw an affair into the emotional rollercoaster that is loosing a child. I can say, that not once in this journey I thought leaving my husband would "fix" my "problem."

It has been made apparent to me that people just want to hear a sad story. But only sad to a certain convienience. A friend and angel mom, agreed with me that these two stories start after the baby is gone. This leaves people feeling less attached to the child missing from the story. If you want a story about an infant death, let's bring the child into the picture....

Lets show the pregnancy leading up to the birth of that child. Lets show the mother who, never gets to look into her babies eyes to see their soul because the soul has already left. Let's show the mother who's baby never cries, and in a moment leaves the delivery room unable to fill their lungs with air. Let's tell the story of the healthy baby that is welcomed into the family. Yes, by all means... lets tell this story.... since people want to hear a "sad" story.

A healthy baby boy or girl is born. The mother spends nights in the hospital loving, nursing, and absorbing this baby. A few days later that sweet vibrant child gets to come home. Mommy dresses baby in the best outfit picked for this special moment. Big brothers or sisters await for her. The days continue. Mommy nurses. Daddy changes diapers. They loose sleep night after night, for the little person they love so much. Big brother or sister talks to baby in his or her swing, and put the pacifiers back consistantly everytime it pops out of the sweet little mouth. Baby gets bathed, and with a full belly and a lullabye gets gently placed into their crib. Mommy stands there so much in love, just staring, watching her baby breathe. The last time mommy see's baby breathing. A lifeless body lays in the crib. So different from the child that lay there hours before. A coroner takes that loved baby away. A lifeless mother is asked questions for the police report. They take everything from baby's crib. And they leave. This mother is left to life. A life that she had opened up to a child that is now missing. The dryer is going... It's washing armfuls of tiny baby socks, and spitup onesies. A husband and wife are left to each other. To mourn. To help their children mourn. To learn to live with the burden that is death.

Wait, does that story seem too sad? Too real? Then tell the one about the mother and father that fight every day for weeks, while their baby struggles day and night to survive. Only until one day they are given the news that no matter what, that little life can hold on no longer. Then we will watch as the two people, who came together in their love, sit and watch as their child dies in their very arms. As the little body becomes heavier and heavier as their baby becomes limper and limper loosing more life with each passing second.

Now. Tell that story. When someone does, then come find me. Cause THOSE are the REAL stories. You will never find them written in the fairy tale books, that so many people are looking to find. These are lives, not stories. And they never end in happily ever after so to speak... If your gonna tell it. For our sake, atleast tell it right...