I was dreading the approach of my angel Alli's 14th birthday on March 2nd. It often comes with heartbreak and pain that even time and distance don't remove. We look at a baby book of my sweet Alli. It takes us through her four-month life, through the pregnancy with ultrasound images of her, of the kids kissing my belly, of her new, 5 lb 13 ounce, gosling-honking newborn form. Those bright, glorious pictures of her tiny, blue-eyed form take us through our adventures with her, her siblings laying on tummy time with her, her older sister bonding with her, her parents and grandparents holding her with joyful faces. The day at three months when the neighbor taught her to smile.
The pictures didn't show the pain and the heartache we went through with a miscarriage before she finally came. The pictures don't show how much we worked to bring her here alive, with trips every 1-2 weeks from 17 weeks to a hospital 45 minutes away to have a flurry of ultrasounds done to make sure the Kell antibody that plagued the pregnancy didn't suck her dry, as it could have. There's so much of her short time here that the pictures don't show, but they do end with her face frozen in death, her too-tiny casket lying in the ground. They do end with warm letters of condolences. My soul always grows cold when we get to that point. I end our visit with Alli in sobs every time. Then, we eat angel food cake to celebrate her birth. We did that this year, but I just felt numb for all of it. Maybe because it was already in the shadow of a more recent loss. In four more months, we will commemorate her death.
As we often do, we planned to go somewhere for one of her significant dates. I hate to be in my own head on those days. We planned to celebrate our other second child's birthday by heading to a dinosaur museum with friends. A snowstorm made that impossible, which devastated my teenager. The loss of that anticipated event overshadowed Alli's birthday. We were at least able to watch "Jurassic Park" together, which was something. It's been a long time since we all watched any kind of movie together.
But a bigger shadow still overcast the whole thing. Thursday morning, we got the call we knew was coming, My father had passed away. We've seen it coming. He was diagnosed with dementia 10 years ago. Over that time, he went from being a strong, confident man who led his family with an iron fist to a jolly lump on the sofa. He went from being stressed and angry about the burden of adulthood to smiling at everyone, having no idea who they even were but loving them anyway.
As he shed the weight of his memory, he shed his anger, his fear, his worry and was just happy to be fed, given Dr. Pepper, snuggled by his dog, taken care of my mother, and entertained by his TV shows. He just wanted comfort. At the very end of his life, my mother could no longer care for him as she had, so we put him in a care facility. He wasn't happy about it, but we didn't have any other choice. And that's where he passed away, a full ten years after dementia set in. He was always difficult, whether the tyrant or the jolly lump, but now, my mom is kind of a lost soul. He gave her purpose, even if the purpose made her miserable most of the time, but now, she's alone.
All of these things have made this last week so difficult. But at the same time, I don't feel it all acutely. Maybe I'm in shock or just burned out from life, but I don't feel any of this as deeply as I'd expect. As anyone would expect. I feel bad for not feeling worse about losing my father. I feel bad about not fully getting to commemorate Alli's birthday and not really feeling what I did. I know these are irrational emotions, but emotion is usually irrational. It is what it is. I do know families can be together forever. That helps with all of this loss. Maybe the upcoming funeral will make me feel anything other than numb.
