Proof Like BOOM!

I read passages out of a couple of Cory's journals the other night.  I keep them near, but don't take them out very often.  I love to see her handwriting, but then, too, I can see the course of her mental illness through the letters that began to straggle weakly across the page.  It hurts to recognize.

As I read over some of her entries during her hospitalizations and just various days at home, some as recent as three months before the accident, I was reminded of something I'd read once about pain.  Someone asserted that the young, through illness or accident, may come to know bad pain, but only the old know true suffering.  As I read about how the voices tormented her and scared her, ordered her to do terrible things, and made her doubt her self-worth, I could see only too clearly that author was wrong.  Cory suffered plenty.

Reading what she'd written was so much like hearing her voice.  Tim finally took them away.  I couldn't stop shaking.

So there was the trigger, next came these thoughts:

I made her sick.  My anxiety made her worse.  Should I never have let her walk to the store?  Was she hearing voices that day?  Did I get her help soon enough?  Did I do everything I could?  Did my relationship choices set off her illness?  Did the stress when I was pregnant cause it?  How could I have prevented her illness?  How could I have prevented her death?  If I'd made better judgment calls, would she be here, whole, sitting at the end of my bed?

They tumbled on top of each other, these thoughts, until I had examined my role in this disaster in every nook and cranny I could think of, beginning while still I carried her in my belly and ending as I watched her walk out the back door.

Reaching for my journal in my bag, I came across the index cards Lady has encouraged me to try.  I scanned one, "I couldn't have loved her more." and instantly thought of a picture of us together.  Before long, I had a semi-circle of photos, washi tape, and index cards spread around me, and was carefully choosing an image to match the remaining statements:  I saved her many times, If Cory wasn't feeling well she wouldn't have offered to go, Some things are outside of my control, Letting her go to the store was part of a greater decision to allow her to contribute to the family, be independent, grow up, let go of fear, and be what she was meant to be.

Oh, how "let go of fear" sent a shiver up my spine!


These pictures, each illustrating the statement on the card, were evidence.  They were visual.  You can tell me anything all day long, and I'll think you're full of crap unless you show me.  I could look at these images and believe the statements were true.  Once I'd finished affixing them all, I turned through them slowly, going back to the beginning the second I'd finished, like a child with a favorite bedtime story.

I felt a lot better about myself, my role in Cory's death, and my role in her life.

Maybe I'll think of some more pages to add to our story.  It's a good one.