Lucky

This morning we had a visit from the contractor who is doing some repairs on our house. Yes, since Peyton died, our house has inexplicably fallen apart. At first I thought it was God's way of trying to distract us from the hell that we were going through. The first major problem, a flooded basement and burst pipe, was discovered as we were trying to rush out of the house to be at Peyton's side for an extremely serious surgery. This was the surgery that revealed the deep set fungal infection that chemo had allowed to inhabit our child's nose, the same infection that ultimately ended her life. That infection was like watching the battle between good and evil played out before our eyes. In that battle, evil won. Someday I may write about it, about the horror and pain that came with that infection, but for now I am still traumatized at the thought of it, and it is just too painful and fresh to share. A hundred years will pass, and I don't think that pain will ever leave. I used to think that people died of Cancer. I now know the truth, they die of chemo.

We bought our house six months after our wedding, a 4 bedroom colonial that we were going to fill quickly with children, and spent the first two years here in newlywed/homeowner bliss, having to do hardly any repairs. Now, since Peyton's passing in October, we have dealt with unblocking a water tank, replacing the guts of our furnace, repairing the water acid neutralizer, repairing our water heater, replacing a well pump, repairing cracking ceilings, replacing a gutter that a sheet of ice ripped off the back of our house, replacing our garage doors and openers after one nearly caught fire, and now, the creme de la creme, having to rebuild our screen porch, a porch that raised no red flags during our home inspection just three years ago, and has suddenly been deemed "unusable and on the verge of collapse" by the local building inspector. This all brings me back to the contractor and the comment he made to me this morning, and the day before that, and the week before that, and the month before that. In fact, this man, a lucky father of two, has felt the need to make the same comment to me in some manner every single time he has seen me for the last month or so.

"Is that the baby?" The contractor asked, pointing to the Thank You cards from Peyton's funeral with her picture on it.

"Yes, that's Peyton."

"What a sweet angel."

"Yes she was."

"No, yes she is. And how lucky you are."

-Silence

"Not many people are so lucky to have their baby looking down on them from heaven."

-Silence

"I mean, you are luckier than me, I don't know my guardian angel."

"I have to get going-"

Lucky? Lucky? How can someone look into the exhausted eyes of a broken woman; a woman who stands in her empty, childless house; a woman who was on the receiving end of one in fifty million odds; a woman who birthed and buried her child in the span of a month, and call her lucky? "Are you serious?" I wanted to scream. No, I would not call that lucky.