Hell Month

February is hell.  Have I mentioned that?
I'm sure I have.  But I'll say it again.  Hell.  Burning hell.
Sleep is poor.  Concentration sucks.  The flashbacks have returned.  I mentioned this last to Jake the other day who nodded in a matter of fact way and said, "Well, Mom, it is February."
And while the accident happened in July...the other end of the continuum- the celebration of the day the world became a world with Corinne Nicole Davidson, six years later to become Corinne Nicole Mansfield in it is almost upon me.  And it weighs a ton.

Sure, it could be viewed as a celebration of the time I was lucky enough to share with her, and it has been suggested by many that I do just that.  There's one little problem with that.  The joy and gratitude I feel about the nineteen years I spent with her will always be overlaid with the searing pain of losing her and the constant, gnawing ache of her absence.  I spend way more time than I'm sure is healthy just wondering what she'd be like at almost twenty four years old.  What would she be doing?  What would she look like?  What would she wear?  What would she like?  What would she be listening to?  What would she think of this or that?  Who would she spend her time with?  What would her goals and dreams be?

Those are hard things to wonder about your child.  Nothing is promised, but boy, don't we assume?  You pick up that little newborn in the crook of your nineteen year old arm, scared to death you'll break her and you gaze down at her little red, wrinkly face, suddenly knowing you made the absolutely right decision, most likely the best decision you will ever make.  You know you will do whatever it takes to give her a good life, maybe not a rich life, but a loved life.  And you know it will be hard, because you are still pretty young yourself, but you have family who will help you.  You look down at that little seven pound eleven ounce bundle and she in that moment becomes the most important person in the world to you...and you assume, that if you try really hard and do a fairly good job, you'll get to watch her grow, watch her have a baby of her own some day, and always, always be in each other's lives, whether you live in the same house, different houses five minutes away from each other, or even across the country...you will be together in some fashion until you die and she buries you... because that's the way things go.  The circle of life.  Amen.

Never in either of these moments do you consider the possibility that she could die before you do.
That's when the horror begins.  It never ends.  And it screams a little more loudly in July, November, December, and February.  It fights for your attention, and it will be satisfied.

Obviously, I've been avoiding grocery shopping and cooking for the last couple of weeks.   It may very well be take out for us until February 23rd has past.  So be it.  I've been holed up re-watching the entire series of Gilmore Girls.  I'm on the last episode tonight, in which Lorelai cries while watching Rory sleep the night before she leaves town for her first big job, and I thought, oh, man, you've no idea.  She will call you.  She will come home to visit. Dry it up, already, you lucky bitch.

I was actually pretty jealous and angry by turns.  Ridiculous, I know.  But we feel what we feel, don't we?
I also listened as Lorelai told Rory all the things she needed for her trip, fussing and worrying herself into a buying frenzy, and suddenly all that crazy brand new underwear-perfume-lipstick-a-good-book-I-knew-she-loved-to-tuck-in-the-casket shopping after the accident made a strange, but solid amount of sense.  It's what moms do.

And this quote from Lorelai to Rory as they prepare to say their goodbyes sent such a chill up my spine:  "I'm finally gonna give you that orange sweater...I know you've always wanted it."
Cory always wanted my little black sweater with the pearls on the front, and that's why I chose it to bury her in.  That flashback hit me and I just crumpled.

This is a hard time.  February.  These days leading up to her twenty fourth birthday...they burn.  But I'll get through them.  I buried my child.  I put my heart in the ground.  And I still walk around.  There's nothing harder than that.