Can You?

So.  Blakie got married!   Blake is my nephew, who was also only three months younger than Cory.  They went to school together and the whole bit.  A couple of weeks ago, his tiny self got married (seriously the boy must still have a 28 inch waistline) to the girl of his dreams.  The wedding was beautiful, and I know Cory would've been out of her mind excited for them both.

Having said that, let me tell you another thing that sucks about losing a child.  The milestones.  Their friends will and should begin having them:  going away to college, getting married, having babies.  Cory never will.  Can you even imagine that for your kids? 

 She never will.

And she deserved to.  She deserved the chance to go to college.

She deserved to find a good man who would treat her well.  She deserved to wear the fancy dress and have a day that was hers.  I close my eyes, and I see sideswept bangs and a veil down over.  I hear her giggling that she'll just wear flats because walking in heels in public gives her nightmares. She might very well of gone bare foot. I see her with a bouquet of flowers in hand and stars in her eyes...

can you see her, too?

Eff the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and why not the seventh, too?

And sometimes a word or a line of a conversations sets your teeth on edge... just right... and although you are forty-one years old and have never been in an actual fight, but have been hit, pushed, and choked many times, you suddenly have this urge boiling up from a place you didn't even know existed.  You want to grab some random person and ball your small hands into fists and beat the person before you until they can no longer stand.  And then you want to climb on top of their tears and blood and pleas, and keep hitting them as hard as you can.  Close one eye.  Close both.  When they talk back, you want to fill their mouth with your knuckles and tell them to Shut up!  Just shut up!

When they've quieted at last, you will sit on top of their pain, sick with victory.  It doesn't make it right.  It doesn't take it back.  But my, just this once, doesn't it feel good?

Just Perfect

This morning I had a dream that I was taking a toddler-aged Cory trick or treating.  I had her by the hand, but she tripped over the hem of her long princess gown, and went reeling as we descended someone's stone steps.  I grabbed for her, my heart in my throat, and checked her over from one end to another.  She was fine, just scared, and I grabbed her up to carry her to the next house on my hip.  She settled in comfortably, her pumpkin bucket bobbing in one hand, while her other hand rested around a lock of my hair.  I could feel everything...her weight against my hip, the remnant of a tear transferred from her chubby cheek to mine, her complete and utter trust of me.

And the way dreams do, it spilled over to cuddling up to an age-unknown Cory watching The Aristocats.  We delighted over our favorite parts, giggling even if we had seen them a few hundred times already, and ended the movie as we always did...with the sudden, fevered desire to go buy some kittens and teach them to paint and play the piano.

Alone

The closer it gets to her death date, the more enraged I become.  Good thing I'm off work right now, because I don't think I'd make good company for anyone.  Tim tells me I take my anger out on the happy people and that's it's wrong.  I disagree.  I can feel however I want.  It's not like I'm burning down people's houses or something.  My question would be why isn't he jealous of the happy people?  Why isn't he burning inside with rage that never quiets?

I so badly wish someone understood where I am.  I hate feeling all alone.

Images

Yesterday, it was Cory in her casket that kept coming up in my mind:  her face, her lips pooched out just a little...her arms and hands, so obviously arranged...the way she felt too solid when I touched her waist...

breaking, my heart keeps breaking.  She dies every day in my mind.

Last night, it was all dirt and gore by the side of the road, and the people in uniform who walked around, just walked.  It's so hard to swallow that nothing at all could be done to help my girl.  My heart will never accept the academic reasons that stayed their hands.

The white sheet floating down over her body- that image alone makes me wish to be done with all of this.

Cory, Cory, Cory.  I can't believe this happened!  I can't believe I let you get hurt.  Mommy is so so soooo sorry!

Get hurt?  No.  I let her DIE.  ALONE.  Oh my God, the guilt is eating me up inside.

These last few days without the structure of work?

No urge for anything.  I've mostly quit eating.  I sleep too much.  Pills help.  I've been trying to hide in my awake time in Netflix marathons, but they always end the same way- my eyes leaving whatever show I'm currently hiding in to look owlishly around my room at the twenty six or so framed photos of my girl.

Bathrobes On Ceremony

A couple of weeks ago, Tim threw a load of towels into the washer, as he often does.  Along with them, he put in my bathrobe and Cory's two fluffy bathrobes that hang ceremoniously outside the linen closet, unmoved since her death.  I noticed them gone when I climbed in the shower one day, but didn't ask him about them or say anything, a little curious to see what he would do with Cory's bathrobes.  The next morning while Jake was getting ready for school, I walked through the living room and noticed Tim patiently unwinding the pom pom ties of her robes that had tangled in the wash.  When I got home from work that night, and walked into the bathroom, all three robes were hanging back in their proper places.

This is what I love about this man.  He can talk "coping" and "getting through it"  all he wants, but in the end, he's no more ready to say good-bye to her than I am.

I asked him some time later if he hung her robes back up to make me happy or because he wasn't ready to take them down, and he answered simply, "I did it because I love her, and I want memories around to make us smile."

Post Traumatic Bull****

I hate it when the triggers take over.  It's one thing to be driving in my car when an ambulance or fire truck goes by, lights flashing and sirens blaring...I can pull over, look down, look away, or even point my car in a different direction.

Today, at work, we were having a community event, and there happened to be an ambulance and firetruck, plus uniformed officer, inside the place.  The lights were flashing, and while the sirens weren't blaring inside the building, they certainly were in my head.  I could feel my entire body just break into goose flesh.  Panic!  Panic!  Panic!  I was instantly back on the side of West Michigan, waiting to be told my daughter was "gone".

What I think I hate most about these triggers and intrusive memories is to everyone else you just look like you're being a big ass baby.  Unless a person happened to be right beside me as I ran down the road that day to get to her, only to find her broken, bleeding, and blue, they are never going to get the whole post traumatic thing.  Parts of the incident are wholly missing, some out of order, and some so razor sharp in my mind, it could be happening in my living room:  like the way her hair covered her face, and her head was flung so far to the side it didn't even seem to be with her body anymore.

Well-meaning people may say that I just have to learn to live with it or learn to cope better.  They want the best for me, I'm sure.  But what I really wanna say is, I AM!!  Aren't you paying attention?  I have a therapist, a psychiatrist, and five different medications trying to keep me from being constantly suicidal.  I've spent the last ten days or so wanting to eat pesticide.  Days like today do not help; they just make my load heavier, and my back feels like it's been broken ten times over as it is.

A friend of mine is right.  People are more understanding and compassionate of illnesses they can see on the outside.  The inside stuff is harder to understand, and sometimes is made to be a reflection on the person's character or lack of trying to be healthier.  That's just not fair.