I'm stunned

Not in the Sybermom sense, but in the gobsmacked/astonished/taken aback sense.

I've been communicating with a mediator, who specializes in what are called "restorative justice" conferences. Basically, the idea is that one of these days, we (or maybe just I) would sit down with Christopher Stacy, the young man who rear-ended us in the accident, and get a chance to talk face to face. As difficult as it would be, I want to do this because I need him to tell me, person to person, that he is sorry about what he did and for him to take complete responsibility for it. I also want to tell him a couple of things, in particular that I want him to remember this always and to honor Hannah's memory by not hiding this from anyone, by using his experience hopefully to educate others, perhaps including his own children, about what can happen when you drive recklessly or negligently.

Anyway, the mediator just e-mailed me. We've been trying to get something set up for this fall. It seems that Christopher's grandfather (who for the most part raised him) just died this week; that Christopher's father, a mechanic with Northwest Airlines, lost his job and they're on the verge of losing their home, and that Christopher and his girlfriend (I assume it's the same girlfriend he had two years ago) are going to have a baby next month. Oh, and that Christopher himself was laid off over a year ago and hasn't been able to find a permanent job since.

So the mediator has said that if I want to go ahead with the conference now, it's my decision and everyone will cooperate, but that under the circumstances, his concern is that Christopher will be unable to fully focus and participate on the issues at hand. He thinks we should wait six months to a year. He did make the point that after becoming a father and having the time to bond with his own child, Christopher might have a better understanding of the magnitude of our loss, and perhaps be better able to own what he did.

I am stunned. For some reason, the idea that he's going to have a child really hurts.

Why does he get to have one when ours was taken away? When he isn't capable of supporting the child or taking proper care of the child; when he hasn't even bothered to make the commitment of marriage to the child's mother; when he can't even get his own life in order? Why was our child, who was wanted, brought into an established and intact relationship, who was given every advantage and cared for with complete dedication and deliberation, not able to stay with us but he can just go pop out a kid with a girlfriend?

WHY????

It isn't fair. It just is not fucking fair at all. I don't even know if we will have another child. I want Hannah back, and I want Emily to have another sibling, but I'm still emotionally not ready to have a child right now; I'm getting older and it's getting riskier and more difficult even if I were ready; in fact I don't even know if it's possible because we still don't know if the vasectomy reversal was successful. We have everything in the world to give to a child, but we are too careful and too caring to just willy-nilly bring one into the world until we KNOW we can do it with our whole heart. There is every indication, in fact, that we won't have another child at all because we aren't going to do it if we can't do it properly.

Meanwhile, he has nothing going for him, and he just gets to start a family, just like that?

I am sorry that he lost his grandfather. I am also sorry about his and his father's employment woes. But he does NOT deserve to become a father right now. Jon is the one who should be the father of two alive and well daughters.