Cut Short

"The hardest part is letting go of your dreams."  And her dreams.

After Thanksgiving, I spent hours holed up in bed binge watching the new Gilmore Girls, A Year in the Life, that had just been released to Netflix.  I had my reservations about watching it at all because it was our show, and I haven't been able to watch a single re-run since she died.  My hesitation was that Rory, the daughter, would show up engaged, married, pregnant, or any combination of the aforementioned.
But I thought, what the hell, and watched it anyway.  Spoiler alert, stop reading if you don't want to know what happened.

The last four words were:

"Mom."

"Yeah?"

"I'm pregnant."

I think my next words were the f-bomb dropped four times in a row, loudly, and with genuine fury.  I may have pounded my fist on my bedspread.
Yes, I was truly angry about this fictitious character's ability to bring forth life.

Is this logical?  Probably not.  But neither is grief.

People who have commented on the ending of this show talked about the parallel of Rory telling Lorelai she was an unwed mother-to-be when Lorelai had been unwed when she carried Rory and then raised her alone.  In whatever way you want to look at it, the story had come full circle.

My full circle was to have my daughter die at 19, which was the same age I was when I gave birth to her.

Am I saying I wanted Cory to be pregnant and unmarried?  Well, not preferably, because I know how hard it is to do, even with the best parents in the world behind me.  But would it have been the worst thing?  No, not at all.  The worst thing is to have no chance at all to feel life grow within you, whether or no that life was conceived within the more socially acceptable bounds of matrimony.  The worst thing is to never have the chance to give birth to the person who would be your soulmate and make you a better person.

So then, obviously, someday becoming a mother was one of my dreams for her.

What were some of hers?  I've relayed a lot of them here from conversations we had, but this past week, I found some black and white evidence from Cory's own words.

While cleaning through my desk, I stumbled upon a copy of Cory's Individualized Education Plan.  Because of her age (she was 17),she was able to provide input to her evaluation team.  They asked her specific questions about her future goals and recorded exactly what she said.

Adult Living:  Corinne wants to live with her mother.  She truly never wants to move out.

Career/Employment:  Corinne wants to become a mental health/disabilities coordinator like her mom or go into some line of social work.

Community Participation:  Corinne wants to remain involved in her church.  She would like to volunteer for school programs.

Post-Secondary Education/Training:  Corinne would like to go to Kellogg Community College for 2 years and then transfer to Western Michigan University.

Those were her dreams.  She asked for so little, and deserved so much more that what she received.  I sobbed over this, and it disturbed my sleep for the entire week.

My sweet girl just wanted to feel safe, help people, and learn.

I knew this already.  But to see it written out from Cory's own words.  Oh, my heart.