Vanishing Acts

I am in the middle of reading a book by Jodi Picoult called Vanishing Acts. I picked this up at Target a few weeks back. Standing in the crowded isle there reading the back of the book I was drawn in. Why, because its about a missing child.

While I know its not healthy or even productive, I sometimes imagine that Bryston was switched at birth and is out there somewhere alive and happy with another family who is completely unaware of their misfortune. When I imagine this scenario, I feel relieved. A. Because he is alive and B. Because in this scenario I will one day find him and be reunited with him and live the life that I was suppose to have had. I know that this fantasy does nothing to help me, but at the time it feels good. It feels good to imagine him alive and healthy and to imagine that one day soon all this hurt will disappear when I find him. I am not unbalanced or insane, I do know that this will never happen but like I said, it feels good to imagine it.I cant dispute the fact that the child they brought me, was an identical match for Ty and I. He was most defiantly our child, not someone else's. I guess it's like the way it feels good to a drug addict to have the one thing that he knows will ultimately kill him one day, one more taste.

This book is really striking a cord with me. There are all of these paragraphs that I totally get. One of them being, "I don't know why they call it getting lost. Even when you turn down the wrong street and find yourself at the dead end of a chain link fence or a road that turns to sand, you are somewhere.It just isn't where you expected to be." Another describing the anger felt along with despair "Let me tell you when you cook down the syrup of loss over the open fire of sorrows; it solidifies into something else. Not grief, like you'd expect or even regret, No, it gets thick as paste, black as ash, yet is isn't until you dip your finger in and feel that sharp taste dissolving on your tongue that you realize that this is anger, in it's purest form, unrefined; a substance to be weighed and measured and spread." That I get. That I understand. I have and am feeling both lost and angry. I get how you want the entire world to feel just as angry and lost and sad as you do. How it's so unfair and cruel that the world doesnt just stop revolving becuase your child died. That that very child isnt important enough for the rest of the poplulation to just stop one damn minute, even though your world did in fact stop moving. My life is and has been on pause. I dont know how to hit the play button anymore and Im not sure that I even want to. Because here, at least in some small way, I can be with my babies.

I'm not finished with the book, only halfway through, but I love the twists and turns the plot is unfolding. I have read her books before and she was a fast favorite for me. I love how she takes these controversial topics and tells it from all angles and everyone side. You start the book just knowing where you stand but by the end your not so sure anymore. I would love to see how she would write a book on stillbirth/miscarriage. I highly recommend any of her books. If you like fiction books, you wont be disappointed, I promise.


A few passages that are bringing me a little peace;

Psalm 22:24
For he has not despised or disdainedthe suffering of the afflicted one;he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

Proverbs 14:32
When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge.

Lamentations 3:31-33
For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.