Sad

Today my sweet son threw a temper tantrum on the playground after school and we departed in disgrace, me shouting at the children, with one borrowed one under my arm as I stormed out of the yard after my two towards our sweltering car.
I imagined that if I had been watching myself I would have been shocked at my tone of voice, of my volume as I shouted the kids out the gate and into the car, my small, silent charge in tow.
It was 96 degrees and Liam wanted me to chase him and his friends. I said no, it was too hot, and I had the baby to watch to boot, and he got angry and belligerant and so I told him we had to go. That was what started it.
The other mothers watched. Their children were running around happily. They all sat in the shade and talked. Some of them had one other child of their own, some just one school aged child playing peacefully with her friends. Nobody was babysitting. Nobody had a non-profit to run at home with no babysitter or extra income to hire one. Nobody else's husband left home at 5 each morning . Nobody elses child was pitching a fit.
And you know what, I thought, as I drove home, with huge tears streaming down my cheeks? Nobody else has a dead child following her through her day, invisibly pulling her down because she knows this awful, drenching sadness that is incomparable to anything else. Nobody else has to know the pain of a baby lost. This is, of course, at the bottom of it all, this is the real reason why I feel sorry for myself. Not because I struggle to run my group on non-existant resources. Not because I babysit too much. Not because my child happened to have a bad day. Because my almost six year old is dead.
I cried, and cried, and cried for myself, for a long time.