One of our friends points out that horomones may impact how much I cry and how wrecked I feel; your dad points out that there are also many layers to the crying I've been doing. I feel guilty over being pregnant while J and B grieve; I am afraid of what this will do to our close friendship with B and J; I am terrified that something similar will happen to you (although, you have an excellent chance of survival if you were born today); I feel helpless because even though we want to be B and J's close supports, your dad and I - in our pregnantness - are probably in the worst place to be helpful or supportive to them now.

I feel a little better having heard your dad give voice to all these things that I know to be true, and several other reasons - I'm less embarrassed about all my crying and feeling depressed. I was feeling ashamed of my grief because, after all, it's not my loss. I have all that anyone could ask. I am now 8.5 months pregnant and the little soul inside of me is healthy and active. Last night at the funeral, I felt especially ashamed of myself because J and B were holding it together better than I was. People from the church who were waiting to comfort B and J paused to comfort and check on me - which felt strangely supportive, even though I was embarrassed and wished I didn't have a 30lb basketball sitting on the front of my body pointing out how much I have and how cruel B's and J's fate has been.

I'm surprised at how much better I feel since the funeral is over. It was a 1/2 Episcopal, 1/2 Quaker funeral - I liked the Quaker sitting - a big surprise to me, since normally, I cannot abide sitting still and being quiet while nothing happens. The entire thing was meaningful. Your dad was asked to read Psalm 90, there was a single line of a Gospel read, and one Psalm was read in unison. Most of the readings were secular - and oh so appropriate. I felt like a lot of the things that were going on with them got acknowledged outloud, and some of the things that were going on with me got acknowledged too. I cried a good bit more - the ugly blubbering kind - after the funeral, when we were in the privacy of our own car and I didn't have to be embarrassed about my bugle impersonating noseblowing. But after that, I was just exhausted, and now, I feel almost human.

I don't know what it is to grieve such a shocking loss. It's one thing to lose a grandparent or to split up with a boyfriend; but there are some losses that you can't prepare for or ever be the same after. B and J have experienced that sort of loss. There's no way to explain it or to give it meaning - if they are able to find meaning in this they will have accomplished yet another miracle. I consider it a miracle that they managed to put one foot in front of another thus far.