11 years- and interjections

 The years pass. Fewer days hear her name said, either in my mind or in a whisper. The memory of her keeps me moving toward more: greatness, liberation, quiet, calmness, peace. I strive to fill my life finding ways to realize my potential. I strive to be better at being me.

She colors my existence. The shadows of my soul are molded in her likeness: round cheeked imperfect perfection. I can still see so much of her in perfect preservation. The purple hue of her nails and the bloodless abrasion on her skin from too long deprivation of air still paint images of flawless beauty in my head, forever mute. 

Sometimes I see myself from above, out of body, my spirit untethered, collapsing before her cremation arrangement at the funeral before others arrived— too overcome by life to stand, my c-section scar not a week old and grief too heavy to hold. The memory is still too heavy for the tears I’ve long since stopped shedding and yet, there they are for the me that knelt on the floor. The tears I shed today are symbolic of grief for the grief that other me had to carry.

Her birthday is less than 6 days away. Her death day is less than 6 days away. 3280 days ago. Weirdly those are the days of my own birthday. Why have I come here on this day? I was compelled. 

(Even stranger is the recognition now, a day after I wrote the original blog, that the previous paragraph above is wrong. I was wrong. I calculated 9 years ago, it was not 9. It was 11. It was actually 4,012 days ago  today. 4/12. As in April of 2012. How have I lost 2 years? Or rather how has 2 years passed? But I alter words from history so I will allow my earlier self to continue. And I’ll make interjections via parentheses.)

A feeling that I should visit this place randomly occurred just moments ago, like a long forgotten memory that I suddenly recalled back into existence. I’m not sure why. But I’ve learned to follow my intuition since her death and so I’ve come. To listen to the dead. To hear the spirits in the stillness. To honor the grief that was. To honor the love for her that is.

A couple years ago, I finally set down the guilt. And I stepped toward forgiveness for all I felt I missed in grieving. Grief is difficult to walk through like dense fog, but it is malleable, amorphous, an ephemeral thing that ebbs and flows and finds its way into the cracks and explodes your world from the inside out. Then over time, over many explosions, like pottery you are able to put yourself back together with veins of gold, not the same, but not less either.  

I am meant to grow, I know this. To grow so my heart can reach above the cloud of grief. So I can see from above and guide myself to accept that I have no control and to be okay with that. I’ve gotten better at this. (And yet sometimes I’m no better at all, I think. But…)

I HAVE grown. That seems counterintuitive since I am here at this blog of grief and loss. But it is also one of change and love and growth and power. There is power in forgiveness, and power in grief. Grief is, after all, all the love that has no place to go and so it turns in on itself and you are instead supposed to give that love to yourself. That is hard to learn. For me it took many years. These last 9 years I have learned to love myself much more. 

I’ve embraced the dreams I’ve dreamt since I was a child.  I have written a full-length novel. It is a story of loss and grief, and strength and love. A historical fantasy that is colored by so much truth.  Maybe one day I’ll publish it. That is my loftiest goal. Maybe one day I should take these blogs and publish them, too. 

Her life has brought me to other places too. Her death has also taught me to listen to my intuition fully. Her spirit has guided me to hear more from the other side. Her love has encouraged me to see more from the other side. But I no longer define myself  by her death. I have learned the courage to step into my own power. 

Many years ago a medium gave me a very specific and detailed message from her. I recall it vividly. She told me things only I knew; literally, not even my husband had known. It gave me an indescribable amount of peace. Ever since I’ve longed to give back to others similarly. I hope that my mediumship work will do that. It is one of the ways that I’ve embraced loving myself, a way of stepping into my power — finally accepting that the quirky aspects of me are actually the parts that are authentically me regardless of what others think— and they are awesome.  

I am not the person I once was. I am more me now than I ever was. Her death and her life has changed me. I have gotten to a place where I feel I can finally see above the fog. 

(The old me wouldn’t have forgiven myself for getting the date wrong. This me realizes that I’m tired. The kind of tired where I have a book in my hand one second and then no idea where I set it. Or where I take a wrong egg and crack it thinking it’s hard boiled and it spills over the table. Or where I grab my salad out of the fridge only to find at lunch time leftovers. Or where crawling out of bed for work is more like an MC Esher clock painting as I drip out of bed in a puddle in the floor.

Or maybe it’s the few days before her angelversary and somehow… I’m still searching for solace in spaces between the words on the page.)

Covid 19, anxiety and number 7

We are somewhere between thigh and chest deep into Covid19. Our life, currently has slowed to a social distancing confinement of interaction. To date 10,800 + people have tested positive for the virus in the US. 4100 of those were in NYS; it is March 19. The first case was identified March 1. I believe it has been among us for much longer.

Here are the musings of my anxious mind. I want to remind you that this is a place I come to think. It’s been devoted to Gabbie previously but since She can be carried in our hearts only I feel that I am the ripple from her existence. She still impacts me daily and I impact others. I pray my impact is positive.

My hope is that by writing all my anxieties that I can deposit it. And let it fester here or simply sit in silence here instead of echoing in my head.  The echoes weigh heavily. But here they are. Maybe I can put them down for long enough to sleep.

1. Do people really think it’s hype?  Like really really?  Is there not a single shred of selflessness within these people who think for even just a fleeting second that maybe, just maybe the virus might destroy so much? Is it selfishness? Ego? Entitlement? What?  If for just a minute I thought that my actions might seriously impact my mom, my dad, my in-laws, the friends I have that are immunocompromised, I would change my actions. I would try everything in my power to lessen the likelihood of my choices impacting others, those I live and those strangers who need the rest of us to care. How does this not get even the slightest consideration by people who are denying social distancing and going drinking or to spring break?  What kind of people has our society groomed?  It is much much worse than I had wanted to believe.  I hope that it is just that most of you are avoiding at all costs and just doing so quietly.

2. Do you really think that this a hoax? And that the government is just trying to take full control of you?   I have nothing for this except to say please educate yourself. Find sources from both sides. Read. Read. Read. Dr. Fauci is an excellent balanced source. Seek information. But do not just be stubborn without real balanced information.

3. I have no real evidence as of yet but I am scared for my own abilities to defend myself. I may be wrong. And maybe this is over reaction and my anxiety speaking to which I am certain my husband would attribute this thought to... but here it is my “evidence”. Many years ago my ENT said I had no immunity of the 7 most people had to upper respiratory infections. I was given a booster then and instructed it wouldn’t last forever. That was maybe 5 - 7 years ago. Then I’ve developed strange ailments. I started to see a sleep specialist because I was always tired. I was given Gabapentin for what they thought was restless legs while on it I had SEVERAL back to back infections of strep. Then tested  positive for mono. I stopped taking Gabapentin and read into it and realized it leaves people open to viral infections. WARNING IF YOU ARE On GABAPENTIN IT IS A SIDE EFFECT IN SMALL PRINT.   Additionally, I recently tested positive for an autoimmune. I’ve not yet had it confirmed by a rheumatologist. All of these things are disconcerting to me. There are so many unknowns for me. I know it’s probable it is anxiety talking but... the unknown makes anxiety worse. And Anxiety and fear threaten immunity so I try to be rational.

4. I’m concerned that if the numbers continue to rise of those people  who require beds, that like Italy, doctors will have to decide who to give a ventilator to and who not. What if I’m right about number 2 and that is me?  But this is doomsday thinking so I tell myself to have faith and take precautions and we will be fine. THANK YOU HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS.

5. I am concerned that poor choices by others refusing to believe this is real will put my loved ones at risk. If the numbers continue to rise will it include an even longer required closure forcing friends to have to close up their livelihoods. For how long?

6. Every cough or moping, lethargic behavior sends alarms through my mom senses. My hyper vigilance is exhausting but real. 14 days is a long time to go before exhibiting signs. My view is that when people start to exhibit signs they refuse at first to acknowledge them and stay home, and instead contaminate others by ignorance either intentional or unintentional. So those lists of where people were while showing symptoms eeks into my mind. I went to the dermatologist. What if I touched something and accidentally brought it home?  Thus number six...

7. Every step out to the grocery store or literally anywhere there may be people resets what I perceive as our window and restarts the anxiety all over again.

So what then? Live in fear. It’s chaotic and unknown. But fear is what causes people to hoard and behave irrationally. Fear cannot be trusted. I wonder if the hoarders are staying home?  So I try to balance fear and anxiety with knowns. And trust that people I would be in contact with are similar of mind. They have loved ones too. But number 1 makes me see flaws in that. People make poor choices in the moment. Some were raised to believe they could be anything including selfish, self righteous, entitled, and invincible and those who believe they are exerting their American right to be “free” by ignoring directives. Others are just out trying to get basic necessities. Others are torn between belief it is bad and belief it can’t be as bad as it’s forecasted and so they toggle.  In any case I wish more of them would stay home. Do you REALLY Need The item from the store? Can you wait until you have a small quick list to allow you to be able to stay home longer?  The more of us it spreads to the fewer beds there will be. The more doctors may fall ill. Who will take care of us when there is no one left and no beds and no ventilators because you wouldn’t give social distancing a chance to work?

Here is what I do know.

1.Thanks to divine intervention or angels on my shoulder before the craziness that was the weekend before everyone went crazy shopping (I hope they got what the needed) I bought triple the groceries I usually buy. I don’t know why but I felt we had to stock  up.   I am thankful we did. My kids have food. And I can avoid stores.

2. The cold broke enough so that our freezers in the garage would keep food and not spoil it.

3. My husband and I and my girls who are in 5-6 different schools each day are now instructed to stay home. Our surface area of contacts reduced exponentially.

4. Somehow I had the foresight to have shifted to occasionally assigning work online to my students despite the pushback because they despise (and with good reason for many of them) the chrome books they have. The shift to online learning was easier for them. I had committed to using them occasionally in an effort to prepare them for college readiness.

5. My husband is patient.  My girls are flexible.

6. I have a very powerful angel who has provided guidance on a variety of occasions. I’m trying so hard to see her signs.

7. I am introvert. With anxiety because I once had a baby I couldn’t save and I’m terrified of not having control even though I have very little control over anything. This pandemic is real-life submersion therapy Of having literally no control except how much I wash my hands and my counters and I’m trying not to fail. So please stay home.

May you heed warnings. Be thoughtful. Be considerate. I hope we feel we have overreacted in the end because that will mean that staying home worked and we made it less bad than it could have been. We are only asked to stay put how hard is that?  Our parents fought in wars. We are only asked to fight by staying home.

So stay still. Stay home and in the words of Dylan Thomas “do not go gentle into that good night.”

Stay well.

Four seasons

Fifteen

Crispy autumn years

Burning beautiful

The leaves flutter like heartbeats and hearty monarchs counting out cooling days

The ending of innocence

soon

Not yet not yet

Sometimes full of shivery cool attitude or sizzling second summer charm

Layers of warmth wrapped in hoodies

Brilliant sun and gray overcast skies of teenage angst and campfire-popping life

Hold on to her beanies those years fly by

Eight

Springing April showers

Mossy mild-dew smells promises of beauty to come

Pressing upward pushing through

Breaking dirt cracking

Jokes Fresh full green giggles and wide-leafed smiles

Just beginning to reach for more

sunshine rays between teardrop clouds

Grounded storm-cloud quick lightening

Attitude Clap-backed middle child wants

Running through yards head and hair thrown back

Laughter like robin and sparrow flight

Barefooted Ponytail pretty

growing like wild flowers touching down for a tiny butterfly second.

Four

Summery years like camping trips

Gone in a sizzle of sass and sunshine

Golden locks wander about like vines

Goodness holding

Wrapping around fingers

A buzz of bumble-bee-nectar sweetness

Skipping hopscotch bouncing bubble beauty

Goldenrod giggles belly laughing

Lemonade stand lovely

Reaching up grasping humid hugs

Holding on

Need a light in sparkling shooting star nights and yet

Smiles like light through sunset pink lips after the heavy-heat cloud-drooping darkness

the rainbow

the sunshine goodness of sticky bedtime kisses and butterfly-flutter-by dreams

An eternal finite moment an ageless time

Winter frozen

An image that never alters iced over

Staying as long as and perfect as a snowflake at your fingertip

An image of unattested beauty fluttering as snowy butterflies

Cacooned in season of stillness

Lips frosted rosebuds at rest

Cheeks curving mounds of whiteness hued blue

Time stopping Silence so loud

White clouds exhaled feathers on tiny wings

A crisp staccato broken ice heartbeat

Silent

Cold perfection

Inhale unflawed love

Smelling memories and waiting

Ever unrequited anticipation

breath held

Still

Stark

unchanged

Forever perfectly pure echo of life

The seasons change in beauty and wonder. The gold of autumn that cannot stay, the wildness of spring that need not be tamed, and the utter brilliance of summer that cannot be quieted. So short a time they stay, so quickly they are altered.  Winter though, I carry in my heart a collection of perfectly pure snowflakes, wispy winter butterflies speaking to my soul of sleeping life.

This place is a graveyard of words

It's been a while. An infinite and yet finite amount of time. I'm not sure what this place to think has become. It's like a graveyard of words. When it's so fresh and new you go and sit on the still-soft ground and sob and hug the earth, the memory, your heart, your hurt, your words, until your sorrow seems to seep like rain into the dirt and your words are jagged like the clumps of dirt, freshly dug. As the ground grows hard with time and you rebuild your composure like fresh fragile grass, you cry less. Your words like the dirt grow harder but more articulate as you understand the place you're in now. Then the stone arrives with her date and you can stop counting the time that's passed because the date will never change. The grass color is just barely noticably different. Your tears no longer soften the hard ground, the headstone won't give against them anyway. The words are smooth and never change; they will always be the same date, the same memories. They are hard now, those words, like the headstone in a graveyard.

Gabbie doesn't have a gravestone.  She has a marker in my garden with her name and date. She has a stone at my mom's church. She has a large stone beneath a tree in a garden in the city. They are permanent like her death. She has me.  I carry her words around within me. I carry her around within me.

I do not know what to do with this place. This graveyard of words.  I come still and read my words. I come still and read about this heartache. I come because I need to remind myself sometimes of what is important. I'm not sure why. The important things in life find ways to remind me of their importance all the time. I don't really need to seek out reminders.

It's been 5 years, 3 weeks, 6 months and 1 day since she has passed.  The date stays the same and still sometimes I count how long it's been, how much life has changed. I can still see the grass is a different color, the ground hasn't really totally settled. It never will. I think I planted different grass. My tears do not soften the earth where she is not. They soften my heart where she is.

I had considered not returning.  But, like a graveyard I think I would still come. I'd come to sit, to read the words, to see the date again. I'd come and watch the changing of the seasons of grief. Maybe now, instead of never returning as I had first thought when I stopped by here today, I return to put out new flowers and tend the grass, clean the stone and look around at all the ghosts.

Thanksgiving is upon us.  I am thankful for so much. I am thankful for all the things that are important.

Missing

It's been nearly 3 and a half years. Gabbie has become a part of the walls of my brain. All thoughts are infused with her loss. Not in a horribly sad way, but more like a lens through which I see things. I think a lot about my reaction to matters, especially with the girls and D.   Is my reaction to stress,  to them,  to life,  one that I want to convey?  I'm still quite snippy.   I see this like I'm standing above myself and I say something snippy and then it's too late to retract it.   Those moments come and I feel guilty but haven't figured out how to stop them before I say it. I find I am most snippy when I am tired, rushed or stressed. Perhaps it's because then I have the least patience. 

I still live with a terrible sense of guilt. Today I should be walking in the WNYPBN'S annual Walk to Remember.   I didn't. Instead I stayed home. I finished the first book I've read in a very long time.  I napped when the baby napped.   For hours.   I cried.   I cried when D was home because I felt guilty for not walking for her,  and I cried when he left and I had put the baby down for her nap.   It was for the same reason--- for guilt, but also for sadness.  She'd be 3 and half.   It's been a long time since I'd considered what she'd look like or be like.   Now that Evie's getting older and beginning to talk, I realize how much I've missed of Gabbie.  She'd be walking and talking and have favorite foods,  and a style. She'd have favorite cartoons and... and none of it matters.   And life is not that. And today,  I cried because I have been feeling guilty for so long and I still don't know why.   I can't explain the guilt.   I didn't kill her.   I didn't do anything so that she'd be sick.  And yet still I feel guilt about her not being here.   And I know that this is so irrational. I'm angry at myself for feeling guilty for not walking and I feel guilty that I'm angry. I don't cry or wallow in her absence often anymore. But today, I allowed myself the deep sobbing cry that hurts your heart, alone on my pillow while the baby slept and D was at the land and the wind blew the trees into beautiful fall colored shimmers outside the window.   It didn't help but it was necessary. I think I'd let the saddness fester for too long. I'd go visit her rock at the Botanical Gardens,  but going any where isn't necessary. I know she isn't anywhere but right here. Her bear, her spirit,  is here.  It's all I have of her and it'll always (and never) have to be enough. 

The business of living

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

My Last menstrual cycle

FRIDAY: Today I awoke in pain.   I'm so swollen I look 3 months pregnant. I have to overlap pain pills with 600 ibuprofen just to take the edge off. I have no choice. I'd go to the hospital for the pain if I didn't know what it was,  but I do know, so the trip would be pointless. I walk hunched over like I'm very very old. A simple tap on my stomach sends shooting pain through my body.

Today is the beginning of my last period.   I thought for a while today about how I'll never have another baby. I considered how Evie is my last. The decision (not that there really was one,  because having babies really is too dangerous for me) is made. I cannot nor will not have any more. My body,  God,  whatever,  has decided that for me. And I'm okay with it. There's been so much pain for me these last few years. So many things have gone wrong, it's time to let things go, starting with my insides I guess. It'll be nice to be healthy again. Derek isn't home tonight,  I'm staying at my in laws with the kids.

SATURDAY: Taking the cycle of percocet and ibuprofen still.  I tried to eat this cereal morning,  I threw it up. Not good.  I still hurt. Yesterday at its worst, I lay in bed crying.  Curled in the fetal position hand over my face,  sobbing. D's parents saw this. I don't think they knew how much this disease hurts.  

Disease. That's the first time I've called it that. That's what it's called in everything I read: a disease. A disease that much is not known about.   I wonder how long I've had it and it was masked by birth control?   I wonder if it may have caused the issues with my water?   I wonder if it's been causing my bowel issues this whole time?   This smart likely.

SUNDAY (or realistically Monday since it's 4 am): I can't sleep.   Not because I'm not tired but because D woke me up checking on me. I'm not sure if he was even awake.  My stomach still hurts some. And my lower abdomin still hurts too.  I wonder if the medicine regime that I never take messed with my stomach. It feels like I got punched in the guts. I can't take ibuprofen anymore--- surgery is a week away. I'm nervous about it. What if it's worse than suspected?  What if they can't get it all?

I say these things knowing that the success rate is good. That's more than other diseases offer. I should be grateful and I am.

One week out, and nearly through one more flare up.   This one was the worst. I'd have been in the hospital again if I didn't know what it was.  They get progressively more painful.  One week out and as scared as I am I hope the surgery comes and is over quickly.   It's a rather large and looming date in my future. Now to get through one more major appointment with my general practitioner for her to give the surgery the go ahead.   I hope it goes smoothly. But that appointment is Tuesday.