Children have a way of pointing out things that we otherwise can't see.
A while ago I posted about Gracie asking if there was a phone in heaven. And when I told her she didn't need it, that she could just talk because Gabbie was all around and could hear her all the time, she asked Gabbie to come visit because she loved her. BUT Gracie also asked Gabbie if she'd visit more so mama wouldn't be sad all the time that she's gone because mama loves her and misses her. This simple verbalized thought pulled at my soul. I tried very hard to not have my sadness spill out everywhere. I didn't do so well. I'm getting better though. I went off my antidepressants; I've been off for two weeks. I feel good about that though I still have terrible anxiety in the car. TERRIBLE anxiety mostly as a passenger. I can't watch out of the windshield.
I feel awful that for Gracie's childhood one of the things she remembers most how mom was so sad. Gracie is 5. At 2 she lost her sister. She'd wipe the tears from my face in the early months when Sky and Daddy were back to school. I really have no recollection of those months except darkness. Then we celebrated the firsts without Gabbie, the first Christmas, and Easter and Birthday (which was Gracie's 3rd). Those all blend too. I missed so much these last few years.
Then I got pregnant and worried and feared and concentrated on not losing her baby sister. And I lost another year of Gracie's growing. With Evie's birth I suffered physically and mentally. I was wounded that I'd never share those moments with Gabbie. I wallowed and emersed myself in Evie's firsts. As the months went on I began to have clarity. All of those moments I lost with Gabbie that stimulated such deep darkness and sadness has now translated to a clarity in the obvious loss of moments with Gracie as she, herself, stated, and now I wonder what I lost with Sky-- the child who shares so little with me about what she feels or thinks but who was old enough to know she has a sister she never got to meet. Sky is 12, now.
I try to remember back to sky being little like Gracie and Evie. Often I can't remember things I wish I could. But it's not just related to Sky, it pertains to many things. I can recall elements of a written story or literature effortlessly; they are things committed to my mind somehow as though they were permanent, like walls of my subconscious holding up the roof that houses all the memories. But real memories are missing, I struggle to recall things I feel I should be able to. Am I so self absorbed in moments that I cannot see what goes on even immediately around me? I want to remember what Sky's favorite food was, or where she was the day she first started walking. I want to remember what she wore home from the hospital, and Gracie too. I want to remember. But I can't. I want to remember other things too. I feel like my world is absorbed in,... in,... I don't know what.... living day to day? Living in the rat race? Living in a self absorbed bubble? Living with distractors?... that I do not make room inside my head for important things because it seems as though those things are just the business of living. I go about my day preparing for tomorrow and am not even sure I even lived today. Is this the nature of teaching? Or is this my nature?
I want my girls to grow up LIVING. I want them to live for sunrises and sunsets. I want them to savor the taste for travel, and ache to try new things. I want them to love to live and live with love but not let either of those things consume them. I want them to strive for greatness but not obsess over it. I want them to be involved in the moment but not so involved in it or themselves that they forget to remember it.
I don't know how to teach them that because I know they learn by watching me and I am a failure at all of these. I cannot remember. I sometimes sarcastically think: what if one day I wake up and realize I've forgotten all of the important things and am left with only fictional stories?
The memorial walk is Sunday and I am struggling with deciding if I want to go. I think I've tried to stop feeling. I stopped my medications. I've not read a novel in months. (I love books; they allow you to feel someone else's feelings, to live another's life). I haven't cried for her in ab while. I just don't know if I can bring myself to go. But then I know, I'll feel guilty for not. What else do I have for her if not this? This business of living is complicated
