Fate or chance?

I have been wondering a lot lately about whether my whole life, I have been headed here. Was noon Monday 18 August 2008 always looming on horizon as a day of great danger for me? Was my ship always pointed in this direction? Did I miss some very big warning signs? How did I not see this coming?

Or, was my ship sailing in calm waters somewhere in the off to a much different destination? Was it that we just encountered unanticipated rough seas and then capsized? Were we just horribly unlucky? I think we were.

If life does all come down to fate, and that our script is already written in the stars and in the sea, then how do I possibly manage to steer my ship back to where we were headed? What is the point of me doing anything to try and get my life back on track if really, fate is just what lies ahead and there is nothing I can do to change it? What if I don't like my destiny that lay ahead? Too bad, I suspect.

I do not believe in God. I am without faith. And I am ok with this. I believe I am still a good person. I don't feel I am missing out on anything. I refuse to believe there is anyone out there with A Plan for me and that I simply must trust and follow. I do not believe things happen for a reason. I do not believe she was sent as a little messenger to teach me lessons and make my life more rich and complete. I know she has lessons for me, and I will continue to learn from those lessons, and try and live my life to the fullest to honour her memory and make meaning of her short life, but they are lessons I wish I never had to learn. I will simply always believe, that she should be here and that we just fell on the wrong side of statistics. No one can escape death and loss in life, we just got stung really badly, really early in our lives. By losing the one person to mattered the most. The little person we made with our love.

I believe if there is a God or anyone out there pulling strings to make things happen to some people and not others, than he/she made a huge mistake. I will be selfish enough to say, I don't believe I needed to learn the lessons he or she wanted me to learn. I was a good, whole person. So is Simon. And I believe little Hope would have been someone who would have made a difference to this messy world. Or maybe she wouldn't have, who really knows. But she's not here, so I can think and dream what I like about her. That's all I get to do now she's gone. Dream and wonder.

Perhaps this God had hand picked out someone else for this awful fate to befall, but got his/her wires crossed. Perhaps he/she meant for it to happen to a Shelly and Simon a few suburbs a way. Or a Steve and Sally up north somewhere. I don't know. I don't necessarily believe others out there needed this lesson more than we did, but I just think we have been so horribly short-changed by life. This was such a huge mistake.

I did everything right to get her here safely. Yes, I made some questionable decisions in her final hours, decisions as a mother I will never really be able to live with, but not as questionable as those who were looking after me. For nine months, there I did the very best I could. For nine months, I rejoiced in the direction my life was headed.

It is so hard for me to reconcile with the fact that the nine months preceding her death and birth was without question the happiest time of my life. I was giddy with excitement. With the loveliest cocktail of happy hormones surging and pulsing through my changing body and with new life growing and moving inside of me, I didn't think there was much that could erase that feeling. I mean I knew there was, but I never thought it would come at the price of her very own life. The six months after her death and birth, has obviously been without question the most vile and putrid time of my life. It is so brutally cruel to go from there to here all in just the blink of an eye. I still sit in utter disbelief, now that reality has set in, that I'm here.

I have to try and steer my ship back in the direction it was headed in last August. It will never end up where we thought it was going to end up, but I have to believe that our final destination, is a much happier place than this sorry place we find ourselves in now.

Or, we just let go, stop bother trying to steer any ship anywhere. Just get off the damn boat and let Fate and Destiny take over as we sit back and try and enjoy the ride.