The distractions are over. My friend, Nicole, has gone back home. It is evening, darkness is just beginning to fall. This morning I got up, I got dressed, and I opened the door to my friend. We went for coffee, we talked, and posed for the camera. I even smiled. Someone who doesn't know me might think I look fine, when I am anything but.
Last night, I looked at the last picture of myself taken before July 5th, and realized I will never look that way again. The light in my eyes is gone. I will never be whole because a part of me is dead and in the ground. I know people are thinking that months have passed. I know they are wondering, when is she going to rally? When will she get back to doing her usual things?
Well, folks, this is me rallying. I go to work, and try my best. I shower; I color coordinate; I accessorize. I greet. I smile. My face is a mask I wear to make others around me feel comfortable. This is as good as it gets. And it is exhausting.
Before you set a timeline you think I should follow, remember that until you happens to you, not in your mind-but actually in the real world, real time, gory and horrendous- you have no idea how you would actually react to the unexpected death of your child. I have done things I never thought I would do, and of which I'm not proud.
I was nineteen when I had Cory. Nineteen. And for the next nineteen years, she was the most consistent person in my life. Her biological father left, came back, left, came back, and left. And then he returned after a decade hiatus to tease us both with the promise of wellness, love, and family.
Tim and I separated after nine years of marriage. Jacob spent many weekends with Tim during this time, but Cory was never invited. That means every single time that Jacob was gone, Cory and I had Mommy/Cory day all weekend long.
Each of the three times Cory was hospitalized, I drove to Grand Rapids to be with her every day. I could not bear for her to be left alone for a single day. I could not bear for her to think that I had or would ever abandon her. People thought I was being overprotective, perhaps, and should take advantage of the time she was under care to rest myself. Are you kidding me? My baby girl was in the hospital, miles and miles away. She was ill and she was afraid. She needed me. She had been abandoned enough already in her short life, and I was not joining that cruel club.
Not only do I miss her unbearably, I feel that I have failed her... not only because I let her walk to the store, but also because she had to die alone. I never wanted to be the one that left her alone. Let Bob, let Tim, let any or all of their parents sweep her to the side at various points in her life. But not me. She needed to know that I was the one person that would always be there for her.
But I wasn't. I wasn't there. I couldn't get there in time. I didn't get to take her hand. I didn't get to say, "Baby, I'm here."
My mind deals out gruesome mental pictures and unanswered questions that keep me awake night after night: Did she know what was happening? Did she try to move at the last second, but was frozen to the spot with fear? Did she feel the impact? Was she in pain? Did she scream? Did she cry out for me like she did so often in the grips of her night terrors those last couple years? Was she still breathing when she fell to the road? Did she want me? Did she say my name -if only in her mind- to get no answer?
I hate it that she had to die. I hate it even more that she had to die alone. Cory never did well with being alone, even under the best of circumstances. And once her illness started, being alone left her at her most vulnerable. She was open game to anxiety, voices, hallucinations, and paranoia. Please God, tell me she didn't die hearing those damn voices berating her in her head. That possibility preys on my mind, stealing any peace I try to harbor bit by relentless bit, until there is none.
After Cory went to the mental hospital the first time, she began sleeping in my bed. She was terrified almost all the time. She saw shadow figures roaming the halls. She saw a man in an old fashioned suit and top hat appear wherever she happened to be. She started out thinking there was a homeless man living in our basement, then started to believe there were agents after her, tracking her every move. No matter what I said or did, I could not take away these fears. All I could do was offer my presence. If you can imagine, Jake soon began feeling a little jumpy. He was all of 5 and 6 years old when all of this started, and soon began to fear being left in a room of the house alone, lest some strange figure would pop up, scaring him as they had scared his sister.
In a matter of weeks, he was in my bed, too. We were a little scared family of three. Cory scared of the things she saw and heard, Jake scared to see his sister screaming out of the blue, and me scared to death that this nightmare would never end. There we were, three little pigs lined up in a queen bed, bundled in quilts, praying for each night to pass. More nights than not were spent awake convincing Cory she was okay, that there weren't people in the house, and that no, Jake and I did not hear the noises she was hearing from outside.
We are safe. I will protect you. I won't let anything happen to you, Cory Girl. I won't ever let anything happen to you.
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