The Nearest Fight Club

It is still alarming to me how I can go from perfectly calm to absolutely enraged so quickly now.  It's like the anger is always there, right below the surface, bubbling like a stew.  I never used to be like this.  With any small stresser, I seem to boil over.   Two places in general are good triggers.  Any guesses?

The cemetery and the grocery store.

My feelings about the cemetery waffle back and forth between sad, depressed, and empty to furious, guilt-ridden, and out of control.

There are days when I miss her so badly, I go to the cemetery despite myself, unsure which feelings will follow, but needing in the worst way to be near her.  Sometimes the feelings set in the moment I've made the turn and I realize it's going to go badly, but at that point, I can't turn the car around.  I would never leave without seeing my girl.  I made it my mission in her life to never show her my back the way so many others did.  I can't do it now, even if she's under a slab of concrete and my back has become taillights.  I will never not show up for her.  That isn't me, Bob.

I abhor going to the grocery store, any grocery store. Family Fare may be worse, but the others aren't much better.  Trust me, I've tried them all.   It is complete and utter self-loathing every time I set foot on a grocery shopping errand.  Oh sure, NOW you go!  Too fucking lazy to go the day Cory died, but by all means, let's go grab a gallon of milk now that she's dead in the ground.  Good thinking, Nick!
These thoughts are so intrusive, I have resorted to earbuds while grocery shopping to try to distract myself.  If you see me bopping along in the produce section, looking more than a little pissed off...well, yeah, I guess I am a little unwell, but at least I'm coping.  I discontinued my Blue Apron subscription a few months ago as the meat quality had gone down, in my opinion, and the boys weren't feeling the exotic side dishes.  There is no choice now but to grocery shop, so I do.  I hate it.  I absolutely detest it.  By the time I've hit the parking lot, I am feeling like an absolute murderer.  If I've stopped by Family Fare (which I do all too often to because it's nearby), I have to drive right over the stretch of road where she died to get home and it completes the torture in the way only techno-color flashbacks of your child's broken body can.

Pissed off all the time.  Pissed off even when I don't have a particular reason to be or have the slightest  idea why I am.    I read somewhere that guilt is anger turned inward.  I guess I've got it inward, outward, and sideways.

Today I stopped by the store for just a couple of things.  I put my earbuds in and rushed in and out of there like the place was on fire.  But even with those precautionary measures, by the time I got to the car, not even five minutes later, my jaw was clenched, my hands were balled into fists, and I was ready to scream.  I drove past her spot, holding one hand up to block my sight and turned onto my road with my stomach in a knot.  The last steps she ever took...down this road and to what end?  Sent my beautiful girl to her death is what I did.  I don't even deserve to be here, grocery shopping or listening to music or just sitting here being mad.

 Four hours later, and I'm still just seething with anger.  Instead of wandering out into the night to join a Fight Club, I thought I'd write it out instead.  Not sure writing is as satisfying, but at least no one gets hurt.

Here's where I fall back on Lady's mantra:  however you feel is okay.  And hear Dr. Z's voice saying wisely, "Trust the Process."  I found a charm bracelet this past week with this saying on it and could not believe my luck.  Now I can wear it alongside Cory's Pandora bracelet, which contains a charm with the letter "Z" for her beloved doctor.  This man saved her life and mine.  I love him dearly.  If he thought being angry, being furious, actually, was okay as long as I didn't hunt anyone down to kill them, then I'm just going to keep plugging along.  Dr. Z is a very wise man.  Someone who could lead my girl out of the darkness is someone I will take advice from.

So for now, no fight club.  I'm gonna Trust the Process

Take You For a Ride

Have I told you that Jake was taking driver's ed this summer?

He finished this past weekend.  He was so excited and proud of himself that I had to take him directly to Secretary of State when I got out of work Monday afternoon.  Neither of us, to be quite honest, could wait another moment.  Our number when we pulled it off the dispenser in the lobby was 58, they were on, oh...25. (Insert wry smile here).   Typical Secretary of State on a Monday.  We waited in the crowded room for what seemed like forever.   At last, they handed him a rather plain, but official looking, paper with no photo:  his level one license.  He was elated.  Jacob is the most mellow individual ever, so to see him excited...well, there's nothing like it.
In the parking lot of the Secretary of State, we passed the paper back and forth, marveling over it properly and I managed to snap a couple of pics for posterity, which speaks volumes to Jake's excitement because he rarely allows photo ops without some type of bribe.  Suddenly, we realized a small problem.  The last wallet we'd bought him was years old and boasted Buzz Lightyear.  This simply would not do.

 Luckily, Kohl's was just down the road.  We ran in on a mission and walked out about three minutes later with a more appropriate wallet in hand.  Once back in the car, he pulled the tags off and grimaced when he realized he'd have to fold the permit in half in order to get it inside.  He caught himself frowning and chuckled, "You know folding this is killing me, right?"  I laughed.  Jacob has always wanted everything just so.  Back in preschool, he wanted no part of messy play or lunchtime spills.  When he came home, his outfit was just as pristine as it had been when he left.  That hasn't changed a bit.

Jake was excited, but still a little anxious, he said, about driving with me on the actual road.  He asked me to drive the first little bit while he worked up his nerve.  When we got close to our house, I pulled into a parking lot and we switched sides.   I watched him methodically arrange his mirrors, check the fuel level, and look all around him before backing out, smiling to myself all the while.  He is so controlled.  I sometimes wonder if he has a wild bone in his body.  And if he turns out that he does, well, someday, as long as it doesn't land him in jail, I will be delighted to see it.  Cut loose a little, son.  You only live once.

Cautiously, he eased onto the roadway and turned our car in Cory's direction.  A few minutes later, he pulled us into the cemetery.  He stopped carefully beside her on the lane and we got out.
How do I explain the duality of emotions I was feeling?
There was so much pride and excitement for my boy.  There was so much wonder at this new phase in his development.  There was unfamiliar, cautious joy at this juncture of parenting I had never made it to with Cory.  But then, too, there was overwhelming sadness that Cory had been cheated this small pleasure and that I been cheated the chance to experience it with her.
I was thrilled for Jake, but as I have mentioned before, the joy was smaller.  It would have been so much larger had we been driving to Cory's place of work or her apartment...or even just home, bursting in the door so Jake could call her down from her room to "Come see what I got, Cory!"

No, we were here instead.  I watched, reverent and my heart breaking, as Jacob walked up to her monument, centered himself before her, and tugged his brand new wallet out of his back pocket. He never faltered.   He fished the plain paper out, unfolded it carefully, and held it out to the marker in front of him that has come to represent the previously flesh and blood big sister who used to play popguns and eat popsicles with him in the backyard.
His voice was quiet, but genuinely excited, as he said,
"Hi."  He paused here, looking down, waiting, as if for an answer to his greeting.   I looked over at him, noticing again that he is now taller than I am, taller than Cory had been.  I  saw the way he bent his head in her presence, speaking to the ground; shy, but earnest.  His shadow fell across her monument, and in that moment, it struck me that it was a man's shadow now, not a little boy's.
 I nearly burst out crying then.  How could you not?

He said to her monument, with the smallest of smiles, but the pain of missing her painted across his features, "Look what I got, Cory.  I got my license.  And a new wallet to put it in.  I just....I just wish you were here. So I could take you for a ride."

That Voice

I know the voice that pops up in my thoughts is nothing like the ones that plagued Cory, day after day, night after night.  It doesn't curse at me.  I don't consider it independent of myself.  It doesn't tell me to hurt myself.  But if I'm to tell the truth as I say I would, it's important to share what this voice is like...what it does say...how it changes the course of my thoughts.

I think that right now, after five years, I am finally acting normal enough in most situations that people think I'm okay.
I'm not.
I try really hard, but I'm not.  And if there's anything I learned from Cory, it's that holding it inside saps your strength and puts you at risk.
I'm not okay.  Sometimes it comes out as irrational anger that just spews from my mouth, my pen, my keyboard.  I wish the people I love most could just remember I am never angry at them.  I am angry at the driver, the cops...the possibly exists/probably doesn't God...but mostly, I am angry at myself.

My sister and I were pregnant at the same time when I was carrying Cory.  It was crazy.  She was happily married, steady, in a good place.  I was nineteen, unmarried, and in an abusive relationship.  Regardless of the circumstances, we brought two of the sweetest babies who ever lived into the family.  They were showstoppers at Sunday dinners, toddling around with their smiles.  They went to school together everyday, kindergarten through high school.  They were buds.  He always looked out for her.  And she adored him.

So today when I see where my nephew is...married, working, and a brand new Daddy, it is automatic to go see where Cory is...at the cemetery, under ground, a mother to no one.  My brain, relentlessly begins asking, "Where did you go wrong here, Nick?  What did you DO?"

I take deep breaths like I'm supposed to, like I always told Cory to, but that voice doesn't really go away.  It's always there.  It may quiet down sometimes, but out of nowhere, it can pipe up again, sometimes accusatory, but other times, just honestly curious, "How could you let this happen to her?"

So what happens next is that I replay every thing that happened the day she died and mentally circle the ten different things I could have done differently to change the course of events.  There are so many possibilities, variations... combinations.  Intellectually, I understand that hindsight is everything.  I understand that what I'm doing is madness.  It is warped thinking.  It is pervasive.  It is useless.

But my heart.  My heart understands nothing. Nothing, do you hear me? My stupid heart just sits in my chest, rocking back and forth, helplessly crying out, "I killed my baby!  I killed her!  I killed my baby!"

The guilt swallows me.  It makes it hard to breathe.  It parades her past me in a white lacy dress or hospital johnny with a newborn in the crook of her arm.

Her arm was twisted all the way around.  They didn't even put her in the ambulance.  They cut her shirt open with scissors.  Her lips were blue.  No paddles for her.  There was so much blood.

Cue that voice:  "How could you let that happen to her?  What kind of mother are you, anyway?"

Calling Me

The pull to the cemetery right now is overpowering.  It's weird because there for awhile I couldn't go at all.  It was just too hard, too painful.  Lately, my car seems to turn in that direction of its own accord.  Even if I had no plans of going there, even if I am empty handed, and most often when my insides are a shaking, jumbled up mess, my hands turn the steering wheel onto the narrow lane.  I always see her, standing tall above the others in her row and in her section.
A friend asked me lately what do I do there...do I talk to her?
Well, sometimes.  But it's awfully depressing to pour your heart out and get no answer.  So sometimes I just sit in the car and cry.  Write.  Draw.  Other times, I bring her flowers, pull the weeds, arrange her little trinkets...a heart breaking substitute for folding her laundry or hectoring her for the thousandth time to straighten up her room.  Sometimes I walk.  I come here with Jake sometimes, but alone most of the time.  Tim visits what?  Once a year?  And only then, when I set it up, like a play date.
Why the many visits just lately?
I guess because I can feel and see everyone passing her by.  Their stories are getting longer and bigger.  Hers was cut short and it's over.  Her story is over and I wasn't ready for it to be.  She wasn't ready for it to be.  Someone told me the other day, that with her mental health issues, perhaps Cory had prayed to be taken out of the situation.  I could feel rage boil up my throat like a tactical missile.  But my affect has become rather flat lately, so I just said, "I think she wanted to be here."
Yeah, she wanted to be here.  Even if it was hard.  Even if she'd gotten a shit deal.  She wanted to be here.  Can't you tell from how hard she tried?  Every day?
Which brings this circle to the same painful closing.  (Get ready, Dr. Z, the four therapists I've seen, and countless friends and family, to cluck your tongue and shake your head.)
I should've gone to the store.  If I'd gone, the lady never would've hit her.  She'd have been safe at home.  And to the people who think God has your days numbered, I say maybe, maybe not...I'm not so sure.  Not so sure there's a God so even less sure there is a giant ledger somewhere with Cory's departing death date on it, stamped in waterproof red ink.
  What I do know for certain is that I could have gone to the store myself instead of letting her walk to the store for the chili powder.  And if I had, she may very well be here. She would be 24 years old.  She would be adding to her story.  Maybe she would be getting ready to be a Little Momma, too.  Who knows?  I will never know because I fucked up.  This knowledge sits in my chest like a rock..a rock with sharp edges that cuts me just a little every time I move.  Any criticism from others, any small mistake I make, changes route with lightening speed to "well, that Nicole Mansfield?  She couldn't even manage to keep her kid alive, so what do you expect?"
That's the voice I hear.  How about that?  I guess I hear voices, too.  I wish I could tell Cory.  She'd be flabbergasted.
I'm not sure what going to the cemetery every day accomplishes.  I don't know if it's helping or hurting.  I just know I feel her getting smaller, fuzzier.  I see it when I pass  her spot on the road and the weeds have taken over.  I see it when I kneel to pull them from around the base of her monument.  Jacob sticks to a few trusted stories and when I trot out others, he often says he can't really remember them.  This kills me.  She must be remembered.  She must be remembered.  She must be remembered.
So whether all these visits lately are a good thing or not, I don't know.  I just know that when I hear her calling, I go to see her.  I couldn't make it to her in time that day on the road.  This is the least I can do.