I've felt some relief having had her death day pass six days ago. Some of the weight slipped off my chest. Then I opened my Facebook today and a flood of memories popped up, one on them reminding me that it is the eleventh of July and just what significance that date will always hold for me. I don't count it down like I do the day of her death. It somehow always takes me by surprise.
They say you don't remember days, you remember moments. But buddy, I remember so much of this particular day, so many moments-
I couldn't sleep a single wink the night before...how do you sleep the night before you bury your child? Tim ran around the house that morning a nervous wreck, practicing his speech and asking me over and over again how old was Cory when we met...was she four? Four, right? Jacob in his shirt and tie, looking so small lost, his eyes eating up his face. One of the most painful moments of my life: watching them shut the lid of her casket. How did this happen? How did we get here? Feeling outside my body at the cemetery as I watched my nephews carrying her casket from the hearse to the grave site. The final words, of which I remember none, that were spoken, nor who said them, only the fierce panic as the clock counted down the minutes until they would put my baby down there in the dark. Feeling disassociated again at the funeral luncheon as people around me ate and talked and laughed quietly. Food being pressed on me that I refused. Our snap decision to have sparklers outside the luncheon for everyone because she had died on the fifth and our fourth had been busy, and we'd neglected to get sparklers for the kids...I held onto a sparkler someone handed me, realizing maybe for the very first time that this was real and not a nightmare. I held onto that sparkler feeling like I might just fall off the face of the earth; my pain was too great and my mind couldn't cope. At one point everything around me faded away, everyone seemed to disappear and the volume of the world turned down low enough for me to hear the blood pumping in my ears. I 'm still here, still alive, while she's not. How is that fair? Setting my alarm to nap an hour when we got home and getting right back up to go check on her at the cemetery. Going there and seeing her plot filled in with fresh dirt...it bent my body over with the brutal truth of it all. That turned earth was just too honest. But still my mind tried to reject the blatant evidence.. I remember wanting to shush everyone who stood beside me. I was listening for her. Maybe this had all been some horrible mistake.
Mostly when I first woke up this morning, I relived this day in a five minute reel in my head. The feelings were as genuine as the day they first happened, and as my mom would say, the tears just rolled. I'll go on about my day now, and take comfort in Jake and my dog. I'll do my chores and make dinner. I'll smile and laugh because it's ok to be sad, but it's ok to be happy, too. What I remember most about this day every time it comes around, what is undeniable, is that the eleventh of July, 2012, is the day so much color was taken out of my world. Putting it back? It's a crap job, there's never enough to get it completely restored, and I can't do it alone. Good thing I have family and friends to help, and I just do the best I can.
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