the blower's daughter

Innocence is stolen and even the most intense skeptic begs answers of an unyielding universe. Point in case, yours truly. Indeed I have set aside my doubts, religious and otherwise, to scream angrily, "WHY?"

I have hovered over, if not completely smothered, my son since I heard from Mely of her baby cousin passing away. Two weeks shy of his first birthday and gone.
Deep breath.
I'm getting ahead of myself.

When I first arrived at the gym, I saw my friends Andy and Mely. I had not seen them in a few weeks and we dove into frenzied updates. Mely very generously asked after Richie and inquired after Nathan's newest act of heartlessness.
As we spoke, I looked her over. She looked strange to me. I had always assumed she was in her twenties, like me. However, today she looked older than her years by quite a lot. Her face was sunken in. Maybe she didn't get enough sleep. I decided it would be rude to tell her how "tired" she looked. My eyes were drawn to her gray hair as a moth to a candle. She seemed to have aged so much. I didn't know at the time, but suffering had tainted her appearance. She told me she had just returned from Mexico, where she had gone for the funeral of her baby cousin. Tears forced their way from her swollen eyes as she described what a happy baby he had "been". My own emotions took over as she told me of the baby's mother. After the death of her second infant, the woman seemed to be going out of her mind. The mother would smile suddenly, directing every one's attention to the doorway as she swore her little man would soon come toddling through. Moments later she would notice that she was standing before her infant son's casket, and she would scream.

"Why, God, have you taken my babies from me?"

Mely said that she has not been able to sleep since seeing the baby boy laid out to rest. His clothes were too big, and he was barefoot. She had never seen a dead infant before. She said she felt that she had to touch his hand, and now she can feel the presence of his tiny fingers in her palm. As she described this to me, she held out her hand as though she cupped his baby hand in hers. That visual is burned onto my mind. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her upright as she cried. Her hand stayed rigid as though she was afraid she would lose grip of his hand.

In situations like this, we all want someone or something to blame.

God?
Mexico?
the pediatrician?
the parents?

the devil?

Financial circumstance dictated the tune of the grief. The coffin was set on the kitchen table; all the funeral homes charged too much. The cemetery is far from the small Mexican town where the parents live with their other children and comes with the stigma of poverty. The baby was buried with no tombstone, just a peace of wood the father wrote on with an ink pen.

WHY?