This isn't just the story of how I deal with losing my daughter. It's also the story of how Jacob and Tim deal with losing Cory, and how we all relate to each other while grieving. It's a bit unfair that each person in the family has this enormous pain to shoulder related to their own personal relationship with the person who died, but then must also cope with the additional stress and judgement that we all put on each other when someone doesn't grieve the same way we do. It's interesting how sometimes you have no idea how someone else's behavior could possibly be connected to their loss (twenty-odd pairs of rubber boots?), and yet, at times, it's the other way around- you know what they're doing is working through their grief, but they are oblivious.
Let me give you an example:
A couple of weeks ago, a stray momma cat and her three kittens showed up in the neighborhood. They were obviously feral; we couldn't get within three feet of them. Jake, naturally, begged to take them in, which Tim and I immediately vetoed. We are a one elderly dog/three cat household. There are days that we can barely even dress ourselves due to our grief. We have more than enough living beings to care for.
About a week after we'd spotted the momma and her babies, Tim came home from work very down.
"Something awful happened today." I immediately thought he'd gotten fired, and began to picture us packing our belongings to a sad parade of cardboard boxes. Obviously, we would lose our house. I had us halfway moved into a sad little apartment that smelled like curry when he broke me out of my reverie. "I found the tan, black, and white kitten on the lot today. A car got it."
"Was it dead?" I asked.
He nodded, his face long.
"That's awful! Did you bury it?" I asked.
"Of course I buried it! What kind of man do you think I am? You think I'd just throw it in the garbage can?"
"Well, no... I can't believe someone would hit it and just leave it out there in the sun." I said, and then nearly choked on my words, realizing what I'd said.
Tim's face paled, and he looked ill. "Why can't people just WATCH where the hell they're going?" His voice was bitter and angry, and in that moment I could easily picture him putting the driver's head into a drill press as he'd casually mentioned he'd like to do before rolling over to go to sleep one night.
"I set some food and water out for the others on top of the swing set fort in the backyard. I know we can't take them in, but I've just gotta keep them out of the road. They just can't be in the road." he said.
So for the next week or so, the "rescue kitties" as we began to call them were the focus of our household. Spottings were excitedly shared between the three of us, and we all began to imagine that we'd slowly form friendships with them. They'd let us pet them. We'd get them fixed, and build some sort of outdoor shelter for them before the snow flew.
I watched as Tim grieved for the calico kitten whose sex was never confirmed. He kept mentioning the kitten and how awful it was to find it that way. One night in the shower, I asked him if the kitten's neck had been broken or what, figuring that talking about what he'd seen might help him process it the same way I've had to describe what I saw at the scene a thousand different times and may continue to do off and on until the day I die. Tim's not a talker. He just put his head down. "I don't know. It was just not something you'd ever want to see. I can't stop seeing it. That little kitten was so cute. It didn't deserve that."
And a day after that, he said this, "You know, except for its mom and siblings, I bet the most love that kitten ever got from someone was when I buried it."
I said nothing, just imagining Tim's reaction had he seen Cory laid out on the side of the road. I've so often wished someone I knew had been there with me so I didn't have to bear those horrific images alone. To see Tim so visibly upset at the death of a kitten he barely knew, I knew why he hadn't been that person. It would have broken him.
As the days went on, and he fed and watered the rescue kitties, I realized this probably had more to do with Cory than I had suspected. I've never seen any hint that Tim might feel guilty that he was not able to protect Cory from the accident. I've read over and over about the dads who took the guilt on immediately and irrationally, thinking they had failed in their masculine role as protector of the family unit, but I've seen nothing to indicate Tim felt this way. And why would he? I set not a shred of blame on him. He was at work providing for her when the accident happened. I was the one who let her walk out the door. But now I saw it clearly. He did feel that way, at least a little. And if he could not save Cory, he would save these cats.
We haven't seen the rescue kitties for several days now. Tim is devastated, coming home from work each night to search for them with a flashlight in the dark. He worries for them. He misses them. And he's slowly realizing that horrible truth: despite your best intentions, some things are out of your control.
"The will to save a life is not the power to stop a death."
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