Tonight Is One

There are the nights when I can't sleep- my chest too tight and my throat threatening to close up shop.  The smallest memory brings it on- just her smile or the thought of the two of us doubled over in laughter, as we so often were.  I see her often in my mind, waiting with Jake at the window, watching for my car to pull into the driveway after work.

 Usually smiling before I could see them, I'd coax the car over the bricks- bounce, bounce, bounce- and then turn my head to the right, searching the windows for the sight of their well-loved faces pressed to the glass.  One or both would begin waving wildly, and more often than not they would both jump up and down.

 No matter what sort of day I'd had out in the world, coming home to my babies was the best part of it.  Sometimes it wasn't easy- being a parent isn't all fun and games- but I knew I was where I belonged, and that as long as those two beautiful souls were smiling to see me approach, I was doing a lot of things right.

It is hard to live in this house.  I see her everywhere.  I hate pulling in the driveway after work.  I hate the road.  I fantasize about blowing it up one day- that stretch on which I ran to get to her and the part where she landed after the driver struck her.  Prison time might just be worth seeing the whole stupid thing just going up in a huge fireball, pieces of concrete and asphalt falling like rain.  Maybe the yellow line could end up embedded on someone else, like the paint from the driver's car ended up embedded on...things.

But most of all, it is hard to believe that this has actually happened- that she is dead and in the ground.  How can this possibly be?  Two years later, and I still don't have the faintest idea, nor does my heart believe it's true.  Not Cory.  Not my girl.  Not my cherished one.

There are those nights where I can almost sense she's about to creak open my bedroom door and come in, complaining that she can't sleep, that the voices won't be quiet.  Tonight is one.

I watch the door with my breath held and listen so carefully.  It never opens.

Acceptance, I abhor you.  You are a heartless bastard.

From Why to What and Back Again

Trying my butt off here, my friends.  I've been making a conscious effort to stop asking "why?"  and start asking "what?".

The why is never answered, anyway.  Why Cory?  Why when she was getting so much better?  Why did I lose my child when so many others get to keep theirs?  Why to a million pieces of this horrid puzzle that add up to nothing but the same old misery and rage.

So then, let's try what.  What can I do to get through this day?  What can I do to get through this moment?  What comes next?  What example do I want to show Jake about grieving, about honesty, about accepting help from others when you need it?  What can I do to keep Cory's name on people's lips?  What can I do with all this love for her that I need to give?

See, I try.  Sad faced Nicole who has bad days and worse days, seldom good days, does try.  I've filled my trusty planner with optimistic quotes, so completely out of character, that I think Cory just shakes her head at me, and says, "Bless her heart, has it really come to this?"

 A few days ago I bought a new dress and a new purse, which sounds like no big deal, but really is.  Right after Cory's death, I bought the stores out trying to distract myself and keep up appearances, but once the dust settled, I couldn't care less if I wore a burlap sack day in and day out.

I saw no one I knew when I looked in the mirror, just a broken old woman who never smiled...and didn't care what she wore or how she looked, or even remembered why she should care about her appearance at all.

 And somewhere, deep down, for a long, long time, I've felt I didn't deserve to buy something pretty or feel good about how I looked- not the woman who'd let her firstborn get run down in the street like a dog.  I didn't deserve to look good or feel good, or even be here drawing breath, if you got right down to it.

So there's your honesty for the day.

  Now here's my progess:

I bought a pretty lace pale pink vintage-look dress the color of ballet slippers.  I have a pair of  greige boots postively covered in buckles and hardware,  that paired with tights will toughen it right up.  I will wear my long Cory locket with it- the one with the picture of her, all dark hair, creamy skin, and luminous eyes, and a big silver "C" on the back.  When I wear this dress, I'll frame my eyes with gray eyeliner, and take the time to put a couple of curls in my hair.  I strongly suspect I'll look in the mirror, and see the girl who carried herself so proudly as Cory's mom not too long ago.  I hope that will be a good day.  I hope.

This past week, I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned for the first time since Cory's death.  I had put it off for far too long, first not giving a crap if all my teeth fell out or not since I wished I was dead beside my girl in the ground, and then terrified and certain they would tell me my teeth must be pulled right away...all of them.  Gum disease.  Bone loss.  The whole nine yards.

Well, I buckled down and made the appointment.  I nearly cancelled it.  Then I hiked up my big girl panties, and went anyway.  I called ahead to ask if I could take anxiety meds before my appointment, and they were very understanding.  They let me listen to music on my Beats, and although I kept my butt muscles clenched tightly throughout the entire appointment, and sat nearly a quarter inch off the seat, resting solely on my fear and anxiety, I got through it.  The dentist laughed indulgently at my predictions of tooth loss, and declared I had no cavities, and my gums are perfectly healthy.

Back in the parking lot, I turned a page in my planner, and crossed dental visit off my self care list I've been ignoring forever.  Only about a dozen things left now.

And finally, I went to a family event of my own free will.   My dad turned 80 this past week, and although I dreaded seeing that imaginary empty chair where Cory should be, I could not give up the chance to spend this special day with my father.  He is everything kind, gentle, and trustworthy that can and should exist in a man.  He has laid his hands on me, along with my mother, as the wracking sobs of losing Cory have had their way with my body- two days after she died, two months, two years, and an untold amount of days in between.   Every time I pass the threshold of his home, I know I am in a place of comfort and no judgment, just love and kindness, patience and understanding.  If he can give that me consistently, surely I could bear this one dinner for him?

So I did the thing I despise in others the most: I put on the mask, and I performed.  I smiled; I laughed; I even table-hopped.  I made jokes and told stories, hamming it up as the old Nick would've done, prior to 2012.  I wonder if anyone could tell I was dying inside to see my niece and nephews healthy and whole, sitting with their folks, just existing the magical way that they seem to do.  All my whats fell short in the sight of parents with their children within arms reach, able to touch and kiss and talk at will.  The whys came back to haunt me, winding their way slyly around the tables of  happy people eating lobster and pasta, so bold and obvious, I could nearly reach up and pluck them out of the air.  What to do with these pesky whys?

I shall paint them out, captured by my own hand, and then despite their desperate cries to stay a little longer, I will firmly turn the page.

What and I have business to do.

Confessions From the Mosh Pit

Self-regulation:  some children learn it at an early age; some adults have never mastered it.  I confess when I taught pre-school, it was my number one objective.  Yes, I wanted them to learn pre-academics, but I knew that someday they would most likely know all the letters of the alphabet and how to count to a hundred.  Most of them would eventually learn to  identify shapes and colors, and cut paper with scissors.  So what instead was my biggest focus, and something they might not ever learn unless I taught them?
To manage their feelings.

I explained it to parents this way:  their children needed to enter public school ready to learn, and while all the academic skills would certainly help, but they also needed to know how to get along with others, how to follow a routine and directions, and how to problem solve.

Without these skills, school and life can be much more difficult.  Most felons?  Probably not the best with self-control.

If at school, you become overwrought with fury and sock it to the person next to you, learning comes to an immediate halt, and consequences aren't far off...more time away from learning.

The adult's question is always "why?"  Why did Tommy hit Sally?  It does no good to ask Tommy, of course- Tommy may or may not even know.  It does help to ask the question to ourselves, and watch Tommy a little closer next time to see what, if anything, prompted his action, and what gain he was able to derive from it.

All of this well-intended behavior analysis aside, last Friday night, I discovered that there is still this humble but undeniable truth:  it just feels good.

Doesn't it?  Have you ever just wanted to give someone a good shove or a light slap?
The reason we don't is because it's not acceptable behavior, and there are consequences for those who cannot follow these basic social norms.  Most of us enjoy our freedom too much to risk it for the satisfaction of beating someone senseless.  (Well, that, and most of us developed some self-control at some point in our formative years).

So, what if you remove those expectations?  What if you put a few hundred people, with their various rages and angsts, inside a dwelling and tell them it's perfectly okay- even encouraged- to push and shove?

Buddy, sign me up.
Do you hear me?  I stood there the other night at the concert of my favorite band watching the crowd begin to move back and forth in a light wave, and slowly realized that to the music, these people were "moshing"- deliberately pushing and slamming up against each other to demonstrate their enjoyment of the music, and perhaps to work out their anger?  The word mosh was originally an acronym for "move over shit head"- as in that obnoxious stranger in the crowd that in your line of sight and refuses to budge an inch.

Look, I had already realized I was very nearly the oldest person a this show while waiting to get in.  When an eighteen year old slip of nothing girl with a belly ring came up and asked if I'd take her and her friends picture, it was all cemented home, "Umm, excuse me, ma'am?  Would you please take our picture?"

Ouch... ma'am.  I guess my days of climbing on the speakers to see the band better are over.  What I wasn't too old for, however,  was to take advantage of the new rules of etiquette.

I looked around at all the sweat streaked faces- some with smeared makeup, some with piercings, and saw in my mind some people I'd like to have a good go at:  the insurance lady, a few of Battle Creek Police Department's finest, the rescue workers, and none other than the driver herself.  To the angry music, I gave a satisfying yell, and pushed with all one hundred and twelve pounds of me.  I really put my back into it, and you know what?  It felt mighty fine.

I was lost in the satisfying meaty feel of pushing against someone else's flesh in an effort to knock them off balance, if not completely over,  perhaps picturing her father's face when he showed us his back for the hundredth time, when my husband caught up to me.  I was just considering climbing into some stranger's hands for a little crowd surfing when he pulled me back, shaking his head with a grin.

Maybe he was right.  I was wearing glasses that night.

But the next mosh pit?  Count me in.

Worth

I can't avoid writing about this any longer.  It's stuck in my throat, and I can't get past it.


For too many years, I measured my worth on my value to another person.  If he missed me, I felt good about myself.  If he didn't, I must not be enough for someone to miss.

If things didn't work out, I hadn't tried hard enough, performed well enough, or tolerated enough.

It was never him; it was always me.

So he told me, and so I believed.

I am so past all that shit.  Or at least I thought I was until I realized I've been keeping tabs on someone else's reaction to Cory's death for the last two years, and for what reason?

Why do I care if he misses her?

Cory's worth does not depend on how another person grieves her, or what she meant or did not mean to him.  She had a full and happy life completely independent of him.

 I cannot judge or even know how someone else grieves for my daughter, but this much I do know:  as much as I feel I am being burned alive in my grief for her, I was once completely set alive by her smile, her eyes, and  her laugh.  The pain now is the price of the joy then.

  I am mourning her entire lifespan, every moment, while he can only mourn the small slice of her that  he took the trouble to get to know.  I could name every scar on her body before the day she died.  I knew every story.  Her tears were mine, and mine were hers.

So what if he doesn't mourn her out loud, in public, or at all?   She will always be completely irreplaceable magic and joy, not a disposable girl to be forgotten, a failed attempt, or a closed door.

 Sure, she deserves to be missed, but she deserves to be missed by someone who knew her well and treated her better.  

Viewing the Monument

I drove.  My mom rode in the passenger seat, my dad and Jacob in the back.  It was probably a good thing that I had company for this errand because my insides were a mess.  The closer we got to the cemetery, the slower I drove.  Mom tried to engage me in conversation on the way, but I was mostly silent.  Around anyone who knows me, I am a total blather mouth.  If I'm silent, something is usually very, very wrong.

The car knew the way, winding around the turns with little help from me.  As we entered the cemetery, my heartbeat sped up with sick anticipation.  I wanted to see the monument and I never wanted to lay eyes on, all at the same time.  I wasn't ready to see it, but I had to be first, you understand.  It belonged to my girl, and she was mine.

In the distance, I glimpsed the shape of her stone, and my first thought was, "It's not very tall."  That was perspective fooling me.  As we closed the distance, it grew taller and taller before my eyes.  I parked the car, gave a heavy sigh, finally grunting as if I was about to pick up a heavy burden and carry it a very long distance.  I opened the car door and shut it.  My feet moved closer and I stood in front of my daughter's gravestone, staring, shaking, crying without realizing I was until the tears blurred my vision.

There's something about putting things in writing, isn't there?  It is formal; undeniable.  It's a public declaration, and from my perspective, being a lover of words, it is the final confirmation of truth.  Is it no wonder the first thing I did was show that beautiful, intricately carved stone my back?

I turned away and sought out my son.  Shaky hands reached for him, and he came to me, with no resistance, whatsoever, burying his head in my chest, and locking both arms around my waist.  I looked down into his face, and saw the sight of Cory's monument had hit him hard.  He was choked up, and miserable.  A stone as a replacement for a big sister, a best friend?  What kind of screwed up deal was that?   He blinked furiously, fighting to get on top of these emotions that had snuck up and sandbagged him without warning.

Mom stood beside me, as she has through this entire nightmare.  She rubbed my back, she held my hand, and she stood strong beside me, murmuring gently all the while about how beautiful the stone was, and pleased our sweet Cory Girl would be.  What flowers should we place?  What sort of pots?  Would bushes be better?  What did I think?

I couldn't answer her.  This was one of those experiences in which you disassociate yourself from all sensory input to avoid the pain.

We weren't there, in front of the monument, more than five minutes.  I bent down before we left, and touched her name with my fingers, rubbing the rough texture and feeling as if my heart and soul were on fire  In that moment, studying those letters that someone had painstakingly carved, I traveled back in time to the beginning, more than two years ago, just days after walking up on her lying on the side of the road.

In my mind, I could see a shocked and hollow eyed woman examining an announcement board at the funeral home, crazed eyes tracking left to right, and back, again and again, unable to believe it was her baby's name on that board.  And that her baby girl's name was on that board to direct people to the room in which her dead body was lying in a coffin.

  On my knees in the cemetery, I was caught up in total memory recall, watching that woman, clearly sick with guilt, begin to sway on her feet.  Those white letters on that black board doubled and trebled, until finally they lost all focus, and Nicole, mother of Cory for as long as she'd been a grown up, fell down.  People came to help her, and she could only beg, "Please, please make them take those letters down."

They did.  The lovely, compassionate folk at the funeral home moved quickly to do my bidding  They couldn't bring my girl back to life, but they could ease the sting of all that reality staring me smack in the face.

No one can take her name down now.  There is no reprieve, however temporary, from this unfathomable realization.  In so many ways, I am back to the beginning, all over again.  As I drove my parents home, I made it about four minutes before I interrupted my mom's casual conversation with huge, donkey braying lung-bursting sobs.

"I knew this was gonna happen."  my mom said quietly...to my dad?  To me?  She patted me.  She reached for the hand in my lap that had balled into a fist.  Misery and heartbreak; anger and rage- they seem so intertwined in my world these days.

The Walking Crescent

I have struggled through words and art to express the horror of not only losing my precious daughter, but also losing the bulk of my identity.  Behind the courteous smiles and laughter in the right places, I am lost, wandering around looking for the rest of me.  I have looked in the wrong places; I have given up before giving some places a thorough search.  But the hunt always resumes.  It must.

If you draw a big circle, that's me.  Inside it, make an arc that cuts the pie into maybe two thirds, and one third.  Got it?  Two thirds of me has been a mother my entire adult life, since I was nineteen years old.  A mother first.  A mother last.  If nothing else, a mother.  Left alone to raise a baby- I was still a mother.  Single parent, poor- still a mother.  Separated from my husband with a divorce in process- still a mother.  If I were fired from my job tomorrow, God forbid- I'd still be a mother.

 The third is split into many smaller sections:  daughter, wife, friend, worker.  Now go back to the the mother slice, and let's tell the truth.  Cory got the largest piece- one- because I had that job for nearly twenty years, and two- because she needed me more.  Jacob got a smaller portion, but just what he needed. We are still learning this dance

 Now let's talk about Cory's illness, and how being Cory's mom during that time bled over into every other part of me.  Her well being was my first waking thought and the last thing I turned over in my mind before sleep.

Do you have this picture?  Now take your trusty marker and scribble out the Cory's mom part of the pie.  And scribble out half of the Jake's mom slice because I am struggling to fill that role.  What is left?  A little slice- a little slice that is miserable and lost, and just wants to go home.

But home is gone.  And now there is the job of rebuilding your identity.  What do you put in all that empty space?  Some people fill it with drugs; some fill it with drink.  I tried to fill it with possessions- a most miserable failure that I will continue to pay for.

  I've tried filling it with new labels:  writer, artist, speaker.  I understand the concept of filling that space with something, of gluing the plate back together- cracked but usable.  I do.

But let me tell you something:  It is uncomfortable.  It's scary.  It feels like a farce.  All of that is fine, I am no stranger to difficult situations.  Here's the worst part:  I don't think I'll ever find anything to fill that space as well as being Cory's mom did.  I do feel as if I'll always be broken and wandering.

"Feelings are transient.  They are temporary."  my counselor says. Oh buddy, are we sure?  I've been feeling this way an awfully long time now, and I'm not sure I'd recognize the face of hope if I tripped over her on the street.

Because here's what I believe, right here, right now, just between you and me.  I believe I can learn to live and function without Cory.  But I don't believe I will ever be happy without her.  It is the most foreign concept to me.

Happy without my girl?  Have you lost your mind?
Impossible.