Sackcloth and Gashes

I have some family coming down tomorrow. We're going to paint some walls in my house. Living room, maybe dining room. I'm not sure yet. Probably some shelves...

I have to get some sleep or I'm going to be hard pressed to pick up a paint brush!

I cleaned house today, thoroughly, and didn't write anything. I have some time, as I just finished one book and have three more currently being decided upon. Still, I don't want to go for very long without starting that new book.

The news is starting to heat up with talk of the impending murder trial. Jury selection has begun. I saw The Monster on the news tonight and it's difficult not to toss the TV through the window. It's a terrible feeling, that helplessness, knowing there's not one thing you can do but hope for justice. But nothing will ever make it right, and there's not enough justice in the world that can possibly make a murderer suffer as much as the people whose lives he or she destroyed.

Today. Hmm. What to say about today.

I am less hurt today than I was yesterday. At least parts of today I was less hurt than yesterday. I kept flashing on that beautiful, special little face while wasting the Sunday in a store, wandering around. I should have been home writing, but these days, staying home isn't high on my list of good things to do. It's too familiar. There are too many memories.

Every I look around I see her pictures, her toys, her ensure, pampers...so many memories. I can't figure out if I shouldn't push it right now, if I should hide all those things so I don't have to see them the entire time I'm home, or if I should keep looking every day, forcing myself to face reality. No matter how much it hurts. Triggers. Do I avoid them, or not? I don't know.

When both my brothers died, I couldn't look at their pictures. I couldn't look at them in their caskets. But with my girl, I did. Maybe because she was my child. Or maybe because she died in my arms, and I'd already faced it. I wanted to bring her home, but I couldn't take her across State lines; that and the fact that my family thought I'd lost my mind and I gave up. I wasn't ready to walk out of that hospital and let them come take her away.

At the funeral, I cut a lock of her hair and tied it with a ribbon. I put it in a beautiful wooden music box I was given after she died. In with that I put her obituary, and a few keepsakes such as an ornament with her name on it. I kissed her, at the funeral, and looked at her face. But I was numb then. I'm not numb now, not wrapped in disbelief. I don't ask why this happened, because I won't get the answer. I just think about seeing her again when I die. I look forward to dying, as hard as that might be to imagine. I so look forward to it. I want to go be with her. Will that pass? I don't know that either. I just know that I'll probably live for a long, long time. And I hope I'm able to enjoy life again. Because if I can't, what a miserable existence this will be, right?

I have to stop looking to the future, because right now, the future is a scary, scary place. Minute by minute, day by day. That's how I'll get through this. Or at least I'm going to try. Sometimes I have to remind myself. Don't look there, you can't really see the truth there. What's in this moment? This is where you need to be. Look into now, into this second. Pretty soon, it'll be tomorrow. And tomorrow is always going to be brighter than today.

While she was in the hospital, respiratory would come around pretty often and do a blood gas draw. I can't stop thinking about that, about how it hurt her. How I held her little arm because I didn't want someone else to hold her still and maybe hold her too hard. I've never had an arterial blood gas drawn, but they assured me that it hurt a lot, because of the nerves there. Things like that torture me. How much does it hurt? Sometimes they'd have to prod and poke for too long because they couldn't find the exact right spot to get the blood. I'm so furious at them all for hurting my baby. God, I'm so sorry. I wish I could have had time to make it better. But she didn't get better. I didn't get to bring her home. She hurt, she died. And I'm a mess.

I meant to have this post written before midnight, but I didn't get to it. It was a pretty busy day, with my therapy appointment and the usual stop at Walmart. I live in a small town surrounded by other small towns, and Walmart is all we have. Seriously.

It was packed tonight, and when I stopped at Kroger to pick up water for my mom, that store was packed as well. Walmart was out of the water she wanted; nearly out of all water, so Kroger it was. And Kroger was also nearly out of water. That's what happens when we get the hint of a Winter storm around here. Everyone runs to stock up just in case we lose power and water, which actually, happens here way too often. Or so it seems, anyway.

I received a tarot card set today for a gift; the book, bag, and cards. The artwork on the cards is gorgeous. I haven't read the book yet, but I did make a pretty little drawstring bag to hold the cards. Of course I did. If there's a use for a drawstring bag, or even if there isn't, I'll make one. Told you I'm obsessed.

I also got a Linda Howard book today, one of the few of hers I haven't read. Talked to a couple of my editors, had a long conversation with a friend, and made myself another schedule of sorts. It helps me to have a plan for my day, and to check things off as I complete them. Lately, I'm more inclined to lie for hours in front of the TV than do anything constructive. Time to get to work, whether I want to or not.

Let's see, what else...I ate too many sweets. I crave them, lately. At the store I bought powdered donuts, and ate some of them in the car. I was shaking like an addict too long without a fix. It's very odd. My drug is sugar. That's just wrong. I've got to get my system back to normal.

Some days when I think about this blog, I think I'll write about the day she died. But it's not something I can do yet. I can't. I try not to think about it so much, because it hurts in places so deep and dark I don't think a healing hand can ever reach them. So not right now. But someday, I'll go over that time in the hospital, maybe it'll even help me see it more clearly. Because lately, all I can remember are the very bad things, her pitiful, heart-wrenching cries of pain, the procedures, the sounds...

But even through all that, I remember saying, smile baby, can you show mama that pretty smile? and she would smile, although only one side of her face would move. Even though she was in such pain. And here I am now, crying, so sad, because she was the love of my life and she hurt. And she's gone. I never got to make it better. She just hurt, and then she was gone. And I hate that I didn't get to make it better. 

Some days I feel like some crazy stranger. One minute I'm crying as an overpowering, horrible pain claws deep grooves into my heart, shredding it into what I hope will soon be a numb lump of hardened muscle that won't make me hurt so much, and the next I'm googling psychics to try and find someone who might tell me my little girl is happy and wanting me to know that she's waiting for me in the afterlife, her, not her as a star or a blade of grass or a frigging cloud, but her. My daughter. She's there, waiting for me. I want to tell her I love her, again. I want to feel her little arms wrapped around my neck.

I'm so mad. so enraged. Confused, lost, sad, so very angry. I'm not even sure who I'm mad at. The doctors and nurses, for sure. But in general, I'm mad at the whole world. Not all the time do I feel this bad, but right now, today, I do.

Last month, when my baby died, I printed out things I'd found while scouring the internet, things that make me feel calmer when I reread them. I'm rereading them right now, hoping I will once again get through this day and tomorrow will be better.

"If I lived a billion years more, in my body or yours, there's not a single experience on Earth that could ever be as good as being dead. Nothing." Dr. Dianne Morrissey.

That usually helps. Maybe not right this second, but it does help.

Did I appreciate her enough while she was here? It doesn't feel like I did. Probably because when our children are alive, we don't think of what it will be like if they die, because that isn't something that can possibly happen. No. They'll be here with us for as long as we're alive. Now that she's gone I think, why didn't I hold her in my arms every single second of every day, just appreciating the fact that she was here with me? Why couldn't I keep her alive?

Did she know how to find 'the light'? Did she leave her body like they say they do, those people who have near death experiences, and float up by the ceiling, wondering why mama wasn't talking to her, wasn't even seeing her?

In the same month last year, my brother was murdered. Because this was such a harsh coincidence, these two that I loved so much going in the same month a year apart, I want to believe that was God's way of letting me see that my baby wouldn't be alone, that my brother would be there to help her, to take care of her until I get to be there with her. He'll explain to her what's going on. This brother was the one who took care of things when he was here. Now he's taking care of her.

I probably seem crazy to anyone reading this. That's okay. I feel pretty crazy.
Tomorrow will be better.

I'm so sad today. I want my baby. I just want my baby. I can't have her, and I want her.

I looked at pictures of her earlier, pictures of her in the hospital, at home hugging her dog, of her making the cutest faces you've ever seen, smiling, happy, alive. And I want her back. God! I want her. Sometimes it's just unbearable. I miss my baby. She was so special. I didn't have her nearly long enough. Forever wouldn't have been long enough. I hope I see her again when I die. I have to see her again. I just have to. It's what keeps me going. I can barely stand the fact that I have to wait. I might be here for years and years. Long, empty, daughter-less years. I miss my baby, so much.

Sometimes they're bad.

I wonder if I will someday reach this day every month without my chest squeezing in pain, my mind flinching in the horror of my new reality.

Losing someone, especially a child, is insanely hard. Not enough time has passed to let me even start to heal. I hope this blog helps. I've been told that writing it down is a release of sorts. It's supposed to help.

We'll see.