Maybe I'm Not Strong Enough

Lately, I've been on the fence again about kidding or not. This bothers me a great deal for a wide variety of reasons, including the fact that at some point, a decision must get made! If I just keep waffling on this, eventually the decision will have been made for me, and I am NOT okay with that. I want to be the one to conclusively decide whether or not we're having children... or just an army of puppies.

Part of why I'm back on the fence again is due to joining this "I heart Boston Terriers" group on Facebook. Yes, I actually belong to that group and will actually be going to a Boston Terrier meetup on July 17th. I am a total nerd for my pups - big time. Thing is, people in the group post oodles of adorable photos and videos - but they also post when one of their Boston babies gets sick, or worse... dies. Yesterday, one of them did. I tear up every time - especially because I know all too well that when Otto and Anna's time is up I am going to be the biggest mess on the planet. I am tearing up as I write this. I know it's inevitable - and I hate it. I mean, just look at them. They're irresistably cute. Painfully cute - and they bring us inordinate amounts of joy. I wish they could live forever.

Likewise, I cannot, for the life of me, even begin to imagine losing a child. I cannot imagine the heartbreak that accompanies such a terrible loss. Your child is supposed to outlive you, but sometimes, that just isn't the way the cards play out. My grandmother outlived her son. He died very unexpectedly at the age of 42 from a heart attack. To this day, I still remember being awake on the phone with my high school friend Mike - at around 2 a.m. on a school night, (which was odd to begin with), and hearing my parents' phone ring in the other room. I knew something was seriously wrong. I just knew. Only thing was, I thought it was my brother. I thought we were getting the phone call that he had died, because he had come close quite a few times already. My heart sank. I remember hearing my mother gasp - and I truly believed I had lost my brother.

Well, I was wrong. It wasn't my brother - it was my uncle. My uncle who had a personal trainer, didn't eat red meat, didn't smoke, didn't drink and was in phenomenal shape... or so we all thought. He had battled non-Hodgkins lymphoma at 21 and was told he had about 6 months to live - but they put him on aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and he beat the odds. Truly miraculous. Unfortunately, nobody noticed that all of those chemo and radiation treatments had weakened his heart - and 21 years later, it simply stopped.

That news changed all of our lives - and my Grandmother's rather profoundly. He was her only son. I don't think she ever really recovered. I was devastated too - but I remember a part of me thinking that I was happy it wasn't Hayes because I think that would've killed my mom... literally. The death of her brother did a serious number on her - but the death of her son would've been far, far worse.

Could I ever handle a situation like that? I really don't know if I'm strong enough. Part of me doesn't know that I absolutely want to find out -but at the same time, part of me doesn't want to chicken out on the whole kidding thing because of fear. I have let my fear dictate many things in my life - but I am not going to let it make what may ultimately be my biggest decision ever for me. At least I'm strong enough to know that. It's a start.