three deaths and a crying baby....april 1989

Well, I sat around all spring break and rotted. It wuz great! Anna came to visit and me and Charles are doing great again.

Then, things for Charles are a little hard right now. His grandfather died yesterday and I feel bad for him even though I don't understand what he's going through, really. I've never experienced the death of someone close to me.

My cousin died of leukemia but I didn't know him very well. They came all the way up from New Mexico because the hospital here specializes in leukemia treatment. Mom and Dad and me visited him in the hospital and he threw up green stuff. He was so weak, his Mom had to push him forward to throw up. She just sat there, watching him the whole time and holding the bowl for him and she never said a word. She just put her hand on his hair or his back.

We didn't stay very long. I know I shouldn't say this, but I was glad to go. I just stood there feeling stupid and grossed out and horrible because none of them looked like themselves in that awful lighting with those terrible plastic chairs and my uncle was so thin that he looked bent.

The only other time I've known someone who had to deal with death was when Sister Isabel's baby died and she moved away. I think staying here was too painful for her. I was so sad that she moved away but I knew I couldn't possibly feel how sad she was.

I thought of trying to get pregnant and giving her the baby, but it wouldn't have been her baby, for one thing. And for another, I would've had to do U KNOW WHAT which is exactly what she spent hours at church teaching us not to do until we're married.

And it's not like I can just go marry someone because I'm only 14 and then if we got married and I got pregnant and I gave the baby away, what then? The guy I married would know he just married a crazy person. Plus, then I'm stuck with a husband I only married so I could have a baby to give to someone else.

I suppose I could get married, get pregnant, not tell him, get divorced, give the baby to Sister Isabel, and run away. But I don't see her liking that very much, either. Like I said before, she wanted her own baby, not somebody else's.

Anyway, none of this gets me any closer to helping Charles or being there for him.

So, while I'm trying to be there for Charles like he always has been for me, I want to be real about it. Charles sez he is doing ok. He is more worried about his mom (it was her dad who died) and his little brother, who has cried pretty much constantly since his Grandpa died. Poor kid.

I think Charles's little brother is pretty emotional in general, though. He cried a lot as a baby, too. My mom took care of him once and he cried ALL DAY. I got so jealous of her paying so much attention to him that I pinched him. It's not like it made any difference in how much he cried. Sure, he cried even HARDER for a minute, but then it was back to the same old bawling.

What if I'm being fake to try to be there for Charles and understand? It's not like I have anything helpful to say or do. I'm trying to pull myself together but I guess not hard enough.