bereft - part 4

You can read the first three parts here: PART 1, PART 2 and PART 3. Still not really sure what i'm doing - but here's part 4...

*******************************

"Baby's code name is Cairo. i love Cairo. i love this little one growing inside me." - January 26, 1996

"In three months and seven days i will be Mrs. Neil Beselt. i can't believe it.  Then five months after that we will have a baby and my life will be so very different from what it is right now."  - January 28, 1996

"no other thoughts even crossed my mind other than that i would love and raise this baby to the very best of my abilities. i miss Neil so much." January 30th, 1996

After a humiliating prenatal physical: "i'm sitting here waiting for my voice teacher to get here and just hoping she won't show 'cause i really, really, REALLY don't feel like singing today." - January 31, 1996

Adding up tiny bits of gig money: "They gave me $30 for three songs, i have $40 in my wallet and i have $50 coming for that benefit gig and another $75 if we do the singing at convocation. i think that's just about enough for Neil's ring..." - February 3rd, 1996

"The smell of the old food in our kitchen was making me nauseous. Neil said it hurts him that i have to go through the first four months of prengnacy by myself so i won't tell him i was sick this morning. He said he already signed us up for prenatal classes." - Feb 4th, 1996

And then suddenly... stealing the words of another to express what i couldn't bear to write in my journal myself:

Bereft

Where had i heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
holding open a restive door,
looking downhill to a frothy shore?
Summer was passed and day was passed.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
out on the porches' sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in his tone
Told my secret must be known:
Word i was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word i was in my life alone,
Word i had no one left but God.
- Robert Frost.

My shame kept me from publicly shouting anything other than love and excitement over upcoming marriage and family... but underneath it all... i felt so horribly lonely in those weeks and months before our wedding as i finished my classes - single and pregnant. The nausea was constant and i felt dizzy and exhausted, but humiliated and guilty if i complained...
i turn pages, remembering... and i read again and again in that little journal every combination of words that convey a message that wasn't... that isn't... true, "they don't love me anymore..." 
My heart broke as i believed that lie. i saw myself as unworthy of love - every flaw magnified, every weakness broadcast to the world at large... Unwanted. Bereft.

"Baby, we want to bring you up right. We want you to be happy and healthy and i want to tell you something else. i want to make a promise to you, no matter what happens in my life or in your life, Neil and i will love you with all our hearts (the word 'daddy' didn't slip easily from my pen yet...) - no matter who you become or what choices you make. i know how it feels to turn around all of a sudden and your team ditched. i know it's hard for my family to deal with the choices i've made and it has nothing to do with you... but i need them now more than i've ever needed them in my life. So through this, i've learned one more kernel of wisdom which i will pass on to you sweet heart. We will love you UNCONDITIONALLY. We want you to become a happy, loving, wise person and if in life you make some bad choices or choices that would be different from ours, don't be scared to talk to us about it, we will love you and encourage you and maybe we'll even be able to help you. Anyways, it's getting late and i'm getting ahead of myself. Do you know what? Right now, you are about as big as a grain of rice. You are teeny, but i love you anyways. So does Neil." ...and so did her Creator. - February 7, 1996


************************************************

*Disclaimer* These journal entries represent how i felt that winter. My family *far* from ditched. My mom sewed dresses and planned my wedding and my dad paid for it all... Despite their support - *this* is the way that a 19 year old single, selfish pregnant girl might *feel* in her moment of desperate vulnerability. Please don't judge my parents based on these feelings which are really, quite far from the truth. Instead - realize that a girl in the situation i was in might feel like a wild animal trapped in the corner of a room without a friendly face in sight. She might be unimaginably needy. She might be unbelievably selfish. She might be inconsolably sad and lonely. Love her anyway.

************************************************

PART 5

PART 6