The Very Worst Day

Not the worst day, but two days after. Where grief, Norwalk, and dinner collided—and someone still had to boil water.

Grief. Child loss. Vomit. Other fluids.
This isn’t the worst day of our lives—
but two days later, when the world decided we needed something extra.
It’s raw, dark, and honest.

And if I’m being honest, you might want to skip it.

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We’d just lost our daughter.
6 months gestation.
Spina bifida. The worst kind.
The kind where the spinal cord grows outside the body and traps itself between two vertebrae.
The kind that pulls on the base of the brain as it develops.
The kind that doesn’t survive birth.
Doesn’t survive outside.
Doesn’t give you a chance.

We found out her gender during the process.
A little baby girl. Just like we’d hoped.
And then came the hospital.
The procedure.
The single night we got to hold her.
Say hello for the first time. Say goodbye in the same breath.

We came home and closed the door behind us.
Ready to fall apart.
To grieve. To stop.

Two days later, 3 A.M., one of the kids projectile vomits in bed.
Screaming.
We clean him, change the sheets, get everything in the wash—
Everything settles down.
Then the second one throws up.

So we start over.
Wash body, change sheets,
throw some baking soda on the mattress to absorb the smell.

Not long after, we’re sitting on the couch, each of us staring deeply into a screen to take our minds off of the fever, the sleep deprivation and the mind-bendingly awfulness of the current situation.
But, sitting on the couch, one of them trusts a fart they absolutely shouldn’t have.
So now it’s diarrhea cleanup for one of us, and while that’s happening?
Throw-up round two for the other.

Shortly thereafter, my stomach turns.
Then hers.
I’m scream-barfing into the toilet.
She’s sobbing in the other bathroom because it’s coming out the other end.

The sun begins to rise, and kid A is throwing up again.
Kid B is crying because he’s got hot liquid dripping out of his underwear.
We rotate.
We’re trying to keep up—
Swapping towels, buckets, fabric stain remover, wiping the floors.

This goes on all day, but by noon I already know—this is trauma I’ll be unpacking in therapy.
By 2 p.m., I’m giggling. Not because it’s funny.
Because crying doesn’t feel like it would do the moment justice.
Because it’s so fucking bad you couldn’t script it worse.
No one would believe it.

It’s the worst kind of comedy.
The kind where your brain short-circuits and it’s either shake and make weird noises or go catatonic.

We’re grieving.
We’re sick.
We’ve changed our clothes, their clothes so many times there’s more laundry in a stinking heap in the basket at the bottom of the stairs than collectively in our dresser drawers.

We’re rethinking which side we’ve really landed on in the agnosticism debate.
Either there’s a reason for the suffering or there isn’t and this just fucking happened—
and neither option seems right.

And through all of that—
through loss, through puke,
through diarrhea and dehydration and heartbreak—
by the time the sun had gone down, one of the kids said:

“I’m hungry”—

and someone still had to make dinner.

Because the world doesn’t stop just because yours did.
Even if someone else shows up with a casserole, trying to alleviate your pain.
Even when someone shows up with a casserole—well-meaning, warm, meant to help—you’re still the one who has to answer the door.

But in the end? It’s just you and the people you love.

I don’t even remember what we made.
Boxed mac and cheese?
Chicken nuggets?
Who the fuck knows?
The food wasn’t what mattered.

All I remember is one of us stood up.
Opened the freezer.
Boiled water.
Did something.

Because something had to happen.
Because dinner still needed to get on the table.
Because there were still two little boys who needed parents.
Even if there was two parents who wanted nothing more than to hold their little girl.
Even if those parents were barely holding on.

---

This isn’t a post about loss.
Not really.
It’s a post about what happens after the worst thing.
The kind of survival that doesn’t feel like surviving.
The kind that just barely crosses the finish line and then has to get up and keep going anyway.

---

I don’t like wallowing in pain.
My posts aren’t ever going to reach this level of raw after this.
Most days, it’s hashbrowns and chaos.
Frozen ground beef and ADHD.
Executive dysfunction and leftovers.

But underneath that?

Is this.
This day.
This feeling.
This reminder:

You don’t have to do it all.
You just have to do something.

Usually, that’s enough. B+.