Trauma

How much trauma can a child's heart take? That is the question that runs through my mind often at present.

As a parent, I feel angry. I feel frustrated.

At present, I struggle to not run on to the farmland I daily see, just out there on the horizon, past my own home. I struggle to not run, and not gasp at air and not fall down heavily to my own knees, out on that farmland. To let a wail creep out from my own heart, and burst out, pouring from my own lips.... it is becoming something of an inner personal struggle.

How much trauma can my child's heart literally take?

I will always remember this child's face contorted with anger at being thrust into a world of harsh light and cold, having been incubated in the six star hotel of my womb. Having not grown for a month, within that very warm and perfect-for-her-hotel, she appeared angry and wild at being thrust out into another whole new world that potentially could, and would, prove to be not so perfect.

This same child, in turn and in time, would have significant respiratory issues lurking in her Pandora's Box called Life. We would face together: the grief of classmates lost because she no longer was able to attend school and needed instead to be schooled at home, and the constant repetitive issues that respiratory weaknesses would thrust upon her. Missing out on regular or even special events because of her respiratory health issues, would often create another heartache for us both.

Somehow amongst these losses, a love, a sense of kinship even, would develop for animals. First a cat, then another became part of our family. Some rescued chickens, then a family of rabbits... then a kitten, then a rescued dog. They would all become companions, become family members, and this child would grow stronger gradually healthwise with time also.

Yet trauma. Ugly, revolting trauma has kept lurking quietly. Ready to bite. Ready to hiss and spit at this very child. This very child, who is my child.

From the farmland no doubt, would come what looked to be a planted disease. A disease that would wipe out a whole family of much loved English Angora rabbits, one by one.

One by one.

So quickly. So tragically quickly. One by one each, so terrribly, terribly quickly, would they weaken and quietly suffer. They would weaken and seek the freedom given by death. So horribly and so revolting quickly.

I stayed out that Watch, such a horrible Watch, and was there when some would finally move from this life to the next. My child too, several times, saw this happen and was gently talked through it. Love makes you not abandon.

It was all too quick this particular trauma. This horrible, disgusting, revolting firsthand experience of repetitive, far too quick trauma wounded my child terribly. Deeply. Dreams are still dreamt. Words are still spoken now. Even now, words and artwork reveal and tell how much her heart literally still often aches for her beloved rabbits.

The death of each chicken, five out of a brood of six, over time due to age or just some natural cause over the years would add some heartache also. Why does this thing called death, which so unrelentingly attached to life, have to touch that which we each love and cherish so deeply when we are in the season of childhood?

As a parent... Sigh, I try to guard my words from become profane. It is a struggle, not too rain down revolting words within the universe, because my own heart aches with its own grief and despair plus that attached to seeing my child's heart ache with grief also.  My heart aches for my child, who so deeply feels each of these traumas that keep coming her way. She loves so fully, so deeply, each and all of her furry and feathered friends.

Now, it is her cat. Her beloved, much loved cat. The one that would sit close at hand, wrapped up, still and quiet resting close to her, that is now missing. It is her cat, that has and is becoming a source of another potential horrible, aching trauma.

No sight. No familiar sound. He has disappeared. He is gone.

We wait.

With each and every passing day, we wonder, both silently and not so silently about where he is. I watch her face contort again, every so often, with the pain of heartache. The ever underlying worry. The ever underlying anxiety passes seen. It shows me that it is there, as she wonders about where he is; what is happening for him.

My own mind tries to keep doors shut. It tries to keep doors from opening. Doors that have images that are dark, horrid and undesired.

I simply don't want to explore the thought that he has or is being tormented, because there are stories of such happening for real. I don't want to see or consider that he is being held against his will by some sicko. I just plain don't want to think there is anything dark or sinister behind this much loved pet's current absence from hearth and home.

As I bush-bashed my way yesterday through tall overgrown grasses on farmland, with a towel at hand, I called out and named this feline, who is essentially for us a missing child. I sought to find even a body, to it bring home, so my child's and my own heart could properly grieve if need be.

The lurking sense of dread and lack of closure builds with each passing day.

Prayers keep being sent.

Some measure of whispered hope keeps being spoken, as I stand so often in the cool of night listening and wondering at present.

Come home, Cat. Come home.