Happiness?

So, my questions are these...Will happiness return for a parent who has lost a child? Does it make parents of a lost child look awful for smiling/laughing? Are we allowed to smile/laugh? Am I following in my mother's footsteps with the life I am leading now? Is that life so wrong? Was she happy with that life? and on and on and on.

     According to Cherry, Yes, happiness will return, no you do not look awful for smiling/laughing, yes you  are allowed to smile/laugh...if it funny, I am probably following in my mother's footsteps, and it is ok to do so, no it is not wrong and we can only assume that she was happy.

So, if everything is allowed, then why do I think of myself as a bad person. I know my mother was not perfect, and until cancer took her life in 2010, she was finally happy...and free. Everything in my life right now is about freedom...sad. It is sad that right now, I feel like a prisoner and now I totally understand how the jailed inmates feel. They just want freedom, just like me.

Then, as my day goes on, and on, and on, I ask myself..."Why did God choose me to feel this awful?" "What have I done to piss him off to the point that he took one of the two best things in my life from me?" Hell, I had to have done something wrong...God only punishes the bad. I think I would rather take a 1000 lashing with a whip than to feel the way that I do. Hell, with the lashing...the whelp and cuts heal, the pain goes away, and you move on. This pain that I have now will NEVER heal, the whelps and cuts are a constant, seeping, bleeding sore and I don't feel as if I can EVER move on.

I feel like Jesus in the Passions of the Christ (which was Charlie's favorite movie). Torn, battered, whipped...defeated. Or at least that is what his face betrays in the movie...defeat. Where did my strength go? I used to think I was strong...but now I just feel weak, lost...and most of all....DEFEATED!!!! UGHHHHH!

Do you know the other day someone asked me who I loved. I said no one. I don't have a heart that could even begin to love...don't get me wrong, I love my oldest son, and would die for him, as would have done for Charlie, but other than him, my heart just doesn't function like that anymore. It is like my heart is encased in a thick wall of ice, never to melt, and I don't think that I will EVER open my heart just to have everything stripped away again. What sucks is that I want my freedom, but I am scared to death that I will die old, miserable and alone...SUX!!!! But hey, I will be free.

When I was a little girl...maybe 5 or 6, I remember living in an apartment complex in Nebraska. And EVERYDAY when we played outside, this old, nasty tempered woman would sit on her balcony and yell at us not to play near her balcony, not to be loud and basically, not to talk to her, AT ALL. When she would be mean, I would run home and tell my mom she was an old, mean woman. Momma would shake her head and say she must of had a hard life. So, one day, my parents made her an Easter basket and my dad made my sister and I take it too her...I was PETRIFIED!!!! I didn't want her yelling at me or Sandy, definitely didn't want her to throw it at me, so I was scared. But, when we walked over and handed her the basket...she cried. Thanked us and went inside. (Momma had made all kinds of homemade goodies and put them in the basket.) Everyday after that, the old lady would wave at my sister and me and would actually smile when we rode our bikes or played by her balcony.

Then one day, she wasn't there anymore. Everyday my sister and I would go outside thinking she would be there that day, but she wasn't. About two or three weeks later, my dad called us into the living room and explained to us that the reason she wasn't there anymore was because she had died. She had fallen, broke her hip and died in the hospital. (The landlord told my dad.) He explained to us that the reason she was so hateful and mean...she was all alone. Her husband had died MANY years ago, she had no children, and all her family was gone as well. I remember feeling so awful for her...swearing that I would NEVER be that woman on the balcony yelling at the children as they played, rode their bikes and acted like children. But, I have to say...everyday I feel more and more like that little old, mean, hateful, deranged woman. I have a hard time being with children or even around children, I just keep thinking...that should be my Charlie; running, jumping and laughing. He would have been in the 5th grade this year. I see his school mates and just want to cry.

My one question...always and forever...why!!!!