6 Months
Yesterday was 6 months. 6 months since I last held or looked upon my child. She didn’t go off to college, she didn’t leave the house to marry…she died. She’s not coming back. I know that and still it is impossible to believe. I look at her picture hanging up at work and it reminds me that when I go home – I am not going to see her there, it still takes my breath away. It still feels surreal to go and visit her grave and to see her name upon that headstone…every time I feel like I’m in a play, somehow acting out my part and that at some point the play will end and I’ll go home to my real life.
As a parent of a suicide, I am often consumed with the question of “why”. I have found that this is not uncommon, having connected with many other mothers who live in my hell. We all know that there is not a definitive answer yet we continue to dig, as though solving the mystery might somehow reverse the outcome. But there’s more to it than that. Another part of me needs to see concrete evidence that it was not my fault. This doesn’t exist either.
These past two weeks have been some of the most difficult in my life. It was the first time that I went through the back-to-school ritual without Abigail. I cried my eyes out every time I saw a notebook, a folder or a blouse that I thought she would have liked. Dropping the other two off at school and watching them walk into that school building without their big sister was excruciating. It’s so fucking unfair. So unfair. I’ve always thought that expressing a situation in terms of fairness was juvenile and petty, but dammit, it all feels so unfair.
I miss her. I miss her in my bones, I miss her in every cell of my body. I have never had so little regard for my own mortality. Losing your child affects you that way. To end on a more pleasant note…I dreamed about her last night. She was a chubby little baby again. She wanted to nuzzle her little face against my chest and cuddle. It was so familiar and so real. It made me smile as I crawled out of bed this morning. As I type about it now, it makes me want to cry….because even that sweet taste of her is not enough.
I don’t know what I or anybody could say that would ease your pain. I can merely offer you a virtual hug.
All those things you keep tripping over that remind you of what you’ve lost…. It really just sucks.
Thinking of you today, and sending you some light and peace.
I love the dream about her. Is that her way of telling you you did everything right? I wish you peace that I know may never come. But I send it your way, anyway.
My heart aches for you, my dear friend. I’m so glad we got to catch up the other day. Sending hugs!
You are coping with such sadness the only way you can.
May kindness follow you.
Sending good thoughts.
It isn’t fair. They say that suicide is the ulitmate act of selfishness. I won’t go that far but it is hugely unfair to those left behind to clean up. You are right to be angry, you are right to be sad, and you are VERY wrong to blame yourself. For whatever reasons, she chose this route BY HERSELF and she chose to do it without consulting you. You would have never chose this path for her. Nothing you ever did forced her to do this thing to herself. She chose it.
The hardest thing is to stop blaming yourself but you need to because it is not your fault. I think perhaps that this is what she is trying to tell you in your dreams.
The previous comments sum up my feelings about this post, too. Java, I just cannot imagine what it would be to be in your shoes. I am, however, so very glad that you are writing about this and pouring out on virtual paper some of the burden you carry with Abigail’s death. Life feels enriched when I read what you have to say about this experience. I’m with Heather in sending you light and peace as well. I’m holding you in my thoughts.
I’m always thinking about you and praying for your family. You are loved.
You don’t know me but I know you. I know you because I have walked in your shoes. I know you because I have felt your pain, your anger, your loss, your agony, your guilt. I know you because I have struggled to find a “new normal.” I know you because I too am forever changed. Join the club, the one no one wants to be a member of.
Catina, I have nothing to offer, except that you are still in my thoughts and prayers.
May time ease your pain and the beautiful memories overshadow the pain and hurt.
Much love
Cat – You are an amazing person. All we can do is love you. For some reason I feel like posting a poem I wrote some time ago…
Eternity
There I was.
Here I am.
That was my perception.
This is now what I see
that was my knowledge
now, I know better
eternity
Cat – This is a follow up to our conversation the other day. I had forgotten that I wrote this (in 1998). I hope you don’t mind.
With love…
CEASE TO BE (Jan 98)
Will I now comprehend my “soul”?
Now that I have taken leave,
Having returned whence I came,
I exist no more,
save to play my role
in the cycle of mother earth.
I have ceased to be!
My eternal plot chosen for me!
I’ve ceased to think, ceased to see
ceased to love ceased to be!
Was all my coming to be, coming to see
just that I might cease to be?
The lengths, the strides
my successes and tides
of trials and tribulations
overcome for naught?
Every thing I learned? that which was taught?
My life of good works to no avail?
And now destined nowhere
nowhere to sail…
It seems as though
death has captured me.
Death, an immovable wall,
not a penetrable door,
but,
after careful consideration
and dying,
I don’t think that way anymore.
I love the dream about her. Is that her way of telling you you did everything right? I wish you peace that I know may never come. But I send it your way, anyway.