There is nothing harder in the world than having to say good bye to your child.

It is a pain no parent should ever know. Tears that should never be wept.

We enter parenthood in good faith, with dreams of watching our children grow up and become parents themselves. Images of little league games and school pageants, followed with learning to drive and onto dating.

We try to visualize our children’s future all the while breathing in their sweet smells and blowing raspberry kisses on their little bellies.

We moan and groan over potty training foibles and temper tantrums in the grocery store. We dread the teenage years and the rebellion we know which must surely follow. We never think of the possibility of not having another tomorrow with our child.

It’s unfathomable.

We do everything in our power to give our children the tools they need, the love they need to succeed in life, with the hope their lives will be everything they dream it to be.

What we don’t ever imagine is being robbed of that joy, of that promise, of that life we created or adopted.

It is unfathomable to think we can have a child one minute and only a memory the next.

Two of our fellow mommy bloggers and their husbands are facing this reality. Two of our own, in this electronic community we have created online for ourselves are struggling with the knowledge there will be no prom dates, no more raspberry kisses.

Two more families now have to face their new unimaginable reality and deal with the fiercest pain they will ever know.

I’m in Los Angeles to help the Spohr family say goodbye to their beloved Maddie. Meanwhile, I’m sending prayers to Thalon’s family and asking my Bug to play with his newest little angel friend.

I wish I didn’t have to.

I wish I didn’t have an angel of my own to talk to.

I wish I was anywhere else but here.

I wish I could say this was unfathomable.

But I know it’s not.

Today a friend of mine said good bye to her daughter and watched as she grew angel wings and flew away.

Madeline Alice Spohr died. She was 17 months old.

Old wounds are ripped wide open and my heart is shredded with the agony I know Heather and Mike are feeling.

There are no adequate words, no gestures, no anything that can erase or even dent the breathtaking pain my friends feel.

I know because that pain lies buried inside me, barely beneath my surface, just waiting for a single second in time when the reins I hold tightly in my hands slip a little and my grief jumps to reclaim it’s visible place on my soul.

I wish on every star in the universe that Heather and Mike did not know this loss. I wish with every cell in my body that I didn’t have to welcome my friends into this parenting club where the only requirement for membership is having drown in an ocean of grief after losing a child.

I wish, I wish with a million spilled tears that Maddie was alive and my Shale was sleeping safely in his bed down the hall.

I wish that Heather and Mike would never have to live the rest of their lives wishing for one more moment, one more snuggle, one more kiss.

I wish they never knew the feeling of walking out of a hospital empty handed and heavy hearted.

I wish, with every beat of my heart, that upon hearing of Maddie’s death I wasn’t instantly transported back to that moment of time when I stood before my own son and begged, BEGGED him to breathe.

I wish I was stronger but I’m not.

I wish I never knew the horror of losing a child and understanding completely what it means when another parent loses their child. I wish I could only imagine instead of knowing.

I wish, I wish that Heather and Mike find the peace that has eluded me these last three years and can show me how to find it myself.

Sweet dreams little Maddie. I’m sending my Bug to greet you.

***For those who are inclined, the Spohrs are requesting that in lieu of flowers donations be made in Madeline’s honor to the March of Dimes.***

Tragedy has struck and the world as I knew it is no longer.

I find myself adrift in an ocean of grief once again, yearning for what once was and what can never be.

I’ve lost my superpowers boob rings.

Well, technically, I didn’t lose them. They are sitting on my bathroom counter, mocking me with their shiny goodness as my nipples weep in despair.

Damn modern technology and it’s fickle ways for making me remove them so I could have a CT scan on my back.

Cursed be the nurse who insisted I remove them before the scan.

Drat my forgetful mind and the muscle relaxants which void me of any and all reasoning skills and not remembering to put them back in until two whole days later.

My boobs, they are broken with out their shiny happy rings poking through them.

I am like Wonderwoman without her magic lasso or invisible jet.

I now have *shudder* normal boobs. Regular funbags with no spectacular dazzling lures attached at their ends.

I am just a plain jane gal with boring boobs and a bad back.

I feel so lost.

Why yes, I do believe I am having an identity crisis without my shiny silver hoops.

(And why yes, I do realize how pathetic and slightly disturbing this makes me. No need for y’all to point out the obvious.)

Don’t get me wrong. I tried to put them back in. Oh how I tried. I drew blood and sweat trickled down my face as I tried to jam the cursed things back into the holes they came out of.

It was of no use and I possibly probably scarred my children for life as they wandered into my bathroom to see what all the moaning and groaning and cussing was about.

(I think it’s a safe bet to presume they will never feel the urge to poke holes in their body after watching me jab at myself in a futile fervor to get my nips back to their former state of glory. Their uptight, conservative father will likely appreciate that.)

Oh, I know on the grand scale of life this is but a wee hiccup when faced with war and famine and Donald Trump’s comb over.

But I have carefully cultivated and honed my identity as the blogging chick with the sparkly boobs for years now. The boobs they held mystical power, mesmerizing all who came around.

Now? I’ve got some dried up old tittays with the odd black nipple hair sprouting up. I’ve beaver tails that have been gnawed upon and hang deflated, bouncing around like two kids on a trampoline.

My mojo…tis lost. (It’s probably hiding in the same place Donald Trump keeps his dignity.)

Who will want to see a topless chick sitting on her front deck, surfing the net without the passing glint from the sun catching their eye and bedazzling them with my pretties?

Oh sure, there will be no more tug of war when the dogs accidentally get their claws tangled in my hoops. Nor will my husband accidentally be able to yank them as he reaches out for me and snags them with his massive man hands.

But neither can I tie fishing line to each ring and hike the girls up either. I suppose it’s back to duct tape and padded bras. Dammit.

Unless…

Unless I re-pierce them.

Sure I could pay someone to do it for me in a sanitary, sterilized environment. But what fun would that be? I’m thinking a few ice cubes, a sharp needle and maybe a potato. That would totally work, right?

I have no choice. This is the journey life has forced upon me. My quest to be the booby blogger I once was and will be again.

Bland boobs and dead nipples will be no more.

Everyone has their burdens. This? This is mine, she vows as she eyes the sewing kit on her utility shelf.

Oh screw it. Who am I kidding?

I’m totally going to the piercing parlour to have them redone.

And I’m thinking something a little south of the border will be in order as well.

If nipple rings brought blogging mojo with it I can’t even fathom the intellectual stimulation a new piercing will bestow.