Keeping the suitcase closed

I haven't been to the therapist in a while, a few weeks now. And I'm not sure I'll be able to go for a couple more weeks. Part of me wants to go, and part of me doesn't.

When I first lost my daughter, I forced myself to think about her--both old memories and the events surrounding her death--constantly. As the year went on, I realized I sometimes need to put my memories aside in order to function (see my earlier posts on the subject). Now, there are days/times when I would really like to just pretend it didn't happen.

Going to the counselor makes that impossible. I've actually found myself getting anxious when I drive to her office lately. It's as if I'm in a relatively comfortable groove, and going to see her pulls me out of that. Or maybe I just fear it will, because we don't always address the grief or trauma directly.

I guess you could say I'm taking a brief from grief work. But someone told me I shouldn't completely do that. I've been thinking about that for a couple of days. Basically, she suggested that if I'm not going to the therapist, I should read some of my books on grief, post daily to my blog, write in my journal, do something so I'm not completely leaving it behind.

I'm not sure what I really want. Maybe that's what I'm doing--trying to figure out what I want. Between being busy at work and my toddler not sleeping lately, I am exhausted. And that makes it harder to know what I want (besides sleep). Sometimes thoughts of my daughter are comforting. Other times everything makes me miss her, makes me sad, angry, and exhausted.

So I think actually it's a question of figuring out what makes me feel better for now. If today I need to post here, I will. And if tomorrow I need to work like a madwoman, I will. I have learned that choosing to never open your suitcase can be really, really bad. That's what the people who never move forward do. I don't have that option--I have another child I choose to live for, live with, and for her, I must move forward.

Just one person

In an earlier post, I talked about how it felt as though it took a village to get me through the days and weeks following my daughter's death. It seemed as though it took that many people to think of all the things that needed to be done, and because everyone was in shock, it took the energy of a village to overcome the sadness, to keep all of us moving through each day.

Today, I don't need a village. I was telling a friend recently about a couple of old friends of mine who've all but disappeared. One moved to another state, so I can understand that maybe our relationship is down to the occasional card or email. The other, I'm not sure what happened. It saddened me to think that these two people are out of my life.

I remember reading somewhere (letter to Dear Abby, maybe?) about a person wondering how to help a depressed friend. The person asking was given numerous suggestions, one of which was to always return a call from that person. Seems like just good manners to me. If someone calls, I always try to call back within a day. It's even more important to return a call to someone who at times can feel completely unmoored.

I don't feel alone--that's something someone said recently when I mentioned my friends who've disappeared. I do feel like it's harder to get help than it was initally. And I don't mean help as in come babysit my child, or listen to me cry and scream, I mean just chat with me, tell me what's going in in your day and help me hold on to reality.

A year ago, no one would have told me they were busy when I called. Being busy is these days a reason to do or not do just about anything. Busy becomes very different when you've literally looked death in the face. Believe me when I say I KNOW what's important. You would think everyone who'd lived through this with me would too, but that's not the case.

I read in the book The Survivor's Club about John Kevin Hines, a man who survived a jump from the Golden Gate Bridge. In the book, he talks about how alone he felt, and how a kind word from just one person, even a stranger, would have kept him from jumping.

I understand that feeling. A drowning person only needs one person to pull her out of the water. And it doesn't matter whether she's offered a hand, a hook, or a flotation device; all of these will keep her afloat.

I have one friend who tells me to call anytime, and almost always answers when I do. If she doesn't, she calls back usually within an hour or two. I have another friend who calls regularly. We don't often talk about how I'm feeling, and I don't usually call her when I'm having an absolute breakdown. But the regularity of her presence and our relationship is a comfort.

Now mind you, I'm not expecting everyone I know to drop everything whenever I call. My point is more that maybe everyone should think about what busy means. If you were to die tomorrow, what would you regret? What if the person calling you died tomorrow?

The one thing I can say that brings me peace is that my last words to my daughter were "Love you." And she said the same to me.

Exhaustion, a form of acceptance

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to work out. At a little after 7, I suddenly realized that I had wondered whether the baby would wake up before I finished my workout, but hadn't thought about her older sister at all. And then I felt strange. And guilty. And sad. Because she's fading from my thoughts. Of all people, I should ALWAYS remember her, and I didn't.

So I thought about her, but couldn't summon the sadness or anger I often feel. Honestly, I felt tired even trying to get angry. Anger really is exhausting. Sadness isn't necessarily easier. I do think anger comes more naturally to me anyway.

Being too tired to be angry or sad, I just gave up. I didn't try to be either. I did remember how she used to come into the room while I worked out and would grab my headband and put it on her own head. She would also try to use my equipment. I remembered all this in sort of a meditative way--it came into my head and went out all on its own.

So maybe this is acceptance. Being just worn out from being angry and sad. My grandmother told me recently that I need to just accept that my daughter is gone, that life will be easier if I do. She has a good point--I certainly can't change what's happened. But I still feel as though acceptance means giving in to something, like if I accept her absence, I'm somehow saying it's OK that she's gone.

It is NOT OK. My daughter should have gotten to grow up--to go to school, to learn to drive, to have her first kiss. I'm sure the anger, like the tears, will come up again. For now though, I think I'll go with my exhaustion and "accept," at least for today, that she's just plain gone and those things will never happen.

The path you walk

Everyone walks his or her own path in this life. It's easy to look back and see where you've been. Sometimes we look forward to things ahead of us. At other times, we look ahead and don't see anything at all. Realistically, even the things we look forward to are things we imagine on our paths--we don't really know where we'll go.

There are times probably everyone wishes they could go back to an earlier time, a part of the path that was enjoyable. You can't ever really go back, but I realize now that some things can be restored. If you get a divorce, you could remarry your ex. If you sell a house, you can one day buy it back.

There's no going back for me, absolutely no way to bring my daughter back. So instead of continuing on the path I was on before, one where I looked forward to her future, I've fallen down a cliff onto a new path. I can't climb back up, and it's sometimes so dark I can't see what's in front of me. I do often look up, trying to see where I've been, but that is so hard. I can't tell you how many times I tell my husband, let's go back to the old house, as though that would restore everything.

Living "one day at a time" takes on new meaning when you're faced with crisis. For many people, it's a way to keep from being overwhelmed. There are times when I find myself living one minute at a time. One thing that helps is remembering that even though I can look back at my path, I can't walk backwards. And I can't really see or know what's ahead of me.

A favorite reading, from an anonymous author:

There are two days in every week we should not worry about, two days that should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One is yesterday, with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed, forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed. Nor can we erase a single word we've said--yesterday is gone.

The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow, with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and poor performance. Tomorrow is beyond our control. Tomorrow's sun will rise, either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. And until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.

That leaves only one day--today. Any person can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when we add the burdens of yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives people mad, it is the remorse or bitterness of something that happened yesterday, and the dread of what tomorrow may bring.

Let us, therefore, live one day at a time.

I had some practice with this before losing my daughter. I did it in the extreme the day she died and in the days and weeks that followed. Now, over a year later, I have to remind myself that I can and should still do this. The remorse, bitterness, and dread of yesterday and tomorrow could easily drive me crazy. I have to focus on this part of the path, one day at a time, one minute at a time, to keep walking.

Burning the pink rose candle

The day I lost my daughter, I couldn't imagine living without her. Which meant I couldn't imagine living at all. My baby girl, she saved my life by forcing me to eat (to breastfeed her) and made me get out of bed (to get her when she woke) and I love her for that. Initially, I also resented her. Not that it was her choice to be alive, or to need a mother. I wished I could just disappear.

I've heard so many words describe parents who've lost children. Victims, recovery, survive. I don't really like any of those. Here's why.

Erma Bombeck was a columnist who was famous for her humorous columns, mostly relating to being a mom and wife. She passed away in 1996. One of her columns, written many years before her death, outlined what she would do if she could start over. One of the things she mentions is that she would burn the pink rose candle, instead of seeing it get melted and ruined.

I read the column years ago, and at the time, saw it as a push to live every day as though it was your last. Thinking about it again today, I also realized that life should be lived as though it will go on forever. Hug your friends, enjoy them, show them how much you love them. Eat cottage cheese, AND eat ice cream--do what's healthy for your body and fun for you. Burn the rose candle--what on earth are you saving it for?

Getting back to my daughter--I know that at least for now, everything has sort of a gray haze over it. The happiest of events are colored by the fact that my firstborn isn't here to enjoy them. But that isn't what I want my younger daughter to remember. I want her to feel just as important, valued, and in the end, happy as my older daughter.

I always say a child's reaction to injury is half what actually happens and half how the adults react. So I try to react to what I think is probably the greatest injury our family will ever face in such a way that she isn't left in a gray haze. And maybe someday, the fog will lift. It certainly feels better than it did a year ago. Burning a pink rose candle may be one way to bring light into the dark.

Asking Why

I was talking to someone the other day about asking why. Why did my daughter die so young? Why did she die at all? Why me? Is there life after death? If so, what form does it take? Do we all die when it's our time? Is there such a thing as an untimely death?

I've asked myself these questions and many others over and over again since my daughter died. There was a point when I thought that if I could decide what the answers (MY answers, at least) were, I would find some sort of peace. Eventually, I stopped asking because I wasn't coming up with any answers.

Two conclusions--first, no one can prove to me that a person dies at the time s/he is supposed to and second, I can't know what the afterlife is or isn't until I'm there. Thinking about it was only making my head hurt.

Do I lack faith? Yes, probably. I know there is more to this world, this life than what can be seen with my eyes and proven by hard science. Isn't that faith? I question everything though. Losing my daughter didn't strengthen my belief in these things that can't be seen. Then again, it didn't really weaken it.

In talking to this person just a day or two ago, I finally realized that even if I had definitive answers to all of my questions, I would still be angry and sad. My daughter would still be gone, and in the end, that's all that matters.

So I've made a tentative peace, with faith, with questions, and the lack of answers.