Losing It

Is it running away to leave town before the anniversary of my daughter's death?  If it is, I am okay with that.  I need to get out of here.  I can feel myself crumpling, like all the good stupid "grief work" that I've done over the last year is so much vapor...here and gone.  This weather, this month, all the fourth of July decorations make me want to cry, scream, and scourge myself.  It's like Tim said, even the air smells like it did that day. 

I often wish I could afford to move out of this house and into another one that I didn't share with Cory since she was four years old.  I feel her around every corner.  I expect her to barge in the bathroom while I'm taking a shower, and plop down on the toilet seat to tell me something that just couldn't wait.  I hear her footsteps overhead, in her bedroom, sometimes.  I get the crazy urge to run up the stairs and see if she's there, but I never do because my heart isn't up to the bitter disappointment.

Dr. Z told me that sometimes people who are grieving hallucinate - seeing, hearing, or feeling their loved one nearby.  I have never been lucky enough to see her.  The only hallucination I've had in this whole mess was at the funeral luncheon. (Sidebar:  people, we need to rethink this tradition right along with "visitation", cause it sucks.)

I remember sitting at a table, hearing people chattering away, some even laughing quietly.  People kept trying to bring me plates of food that I steadily ignored.  I appreciated everyone's kindness in coming and sharing in the pasta fare- what was meant to be Cory's Open House when she finished her credits.  But there was no way I could put food into my mouth.  I had just watched her be put into the ground a bare thirty minutes ago, and I was to eat?  No, not happening.

I sat there, feeling dead inside, wanting to be anywhere but at that table, but unable to be anywhere but at her open house, such as it was.  So I sat, broken and dull, unable to meet anyone's eyes, unable to cry.  I just sat in shock, clutching the little canvas painting I'd held through her service.  After staring at it for awhile, I could see the fingerprints and the brushstrokes start to change, and make a moving picture.  It looked like the cemetery- Cory's grave, Jake, Tim and I standing at the head...all of our heads bent low.  Finally, a bird appeared and flew off into the sky.  Sleep deprivation?  Complicated grief?  You got me.  I watched my painting movie, and I felt my heart close in on itself, bit by bit.  I do not ever want to hurt this way again.  Let me off the ride, please.

I felt her- not just her presence- but her physical touch, one time.  I had begged her if she was anywhere in the house, please make herself known...throw something, move something, make a mess, anything, baby girl, just please let me know if you are here.  I laid my head down on my pillow, unable to sleep, and felt a small, shaky hand brush through my hair on the side of my head.  Just once, but deliberately enough to be known.  Cory, as always, was trying to help, and showing love, which are two of the things she did best.

Cory Girl, I am losing my mind without you.  Oh yeah, and I'm getting the hell away from West Michigan Avenue on the fifth of July.  I hope you'll come with me.