One of Two

(Alli new)

Well, we made it through one of two major hurdles that come around every year.  March is my angel's birthday.  June is her angelversary, her death date.  Those two dates still feel way too close together.

The worst part of her birthday was just before, when I wrote the last post, and then the morning of, when it was quiet, and people were writing and calling in sympathy.  I wasn't thinking about it until then.  After that, it was all I could think about.  Fortunately, it was a short day at school.  After I picked up kids, I was swept up in the reality of mommying, especially when I also ended up babysitting my sister's kids.  Then we all went out to eat to make up for not being able to have my girl's party that night.

(Playing with Alli)

At the end of festivities, however, it was time to eat our angel food cake and go through Alli's pictures.  The tears flooded in again.  It's always a pleasure to feel her back with us as I'm looking through those pictures.  The worst part is always when I get to the funeral pictures with her waxen face and, almost worse still, when the pictures run out.  I always feel so empty when I get to that point.

(Viewing)

It made me sad that the kids said they don't really remember her at all.  It has been eight years.  I guess that's a very good reason to go through those pictures at least twice a year, so they can remember her and feel like she's a part of us instead of just a memory.  Sometimes, it's hard to feel like she's more than a memory for me.  I know she's with us as often as she can be.  I know she's still real, an angel watching over us.  But I've gotten so used to the pain that it can be hard to remember the joy.  Some years, her birthday feels more like a celebration of her brief life.  I guess that's the way it should be every year, so she knows we still remember and love her.

Too much Death

I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like I can't hop on FaceBook or even the news without hearing about world-rocking loss hitting someone I know.  One day, I spent about five minutes online and found news of three deaths, all in rapid succession. A friend of mine posted a news article of how her niece and her niece's best friend were hit by a truck, which killed one of them.  Another friend is reeling from the death of a cousin.  Another friend's mother unexpectedly passed away.  And so on.  Then, of course, were the loss of the three-year-old I wrote about last time and the loss of my good friend's beloved husband I wrote about some time ago.  They all break my heart because they were so sudden and unexpected.  Each of them broke multiple hearts.  And the list of loss rolls on.  For the sake of one of my friends, I looked up a FaceBook support group for mothers of angels.  Now, I get the stream on my FaceBook wall of pictures of babies mourned.  It's almost a shock to see a baby who is still alive and well. 

I don't actually know most of those who were lost, but I feel their pain.  It's so hard to be living life, feeling like everything is okay when someone calls or something happenszx, and your world falls apart.  I run into constant reminders of how fragile life is and how precious the moments are.  I know families can be forever, but loss is so hard in the here and now.  I fell into the trap of self-blame, and I can only imagine that's a very real struggle in the lives of many of those who have lost those they love. 

It's such a helpless feeling to hear about someone's pain when you can't do anything.  All you want to do is take away their pain, yet you know it's not possible.  All I can do in many cases is pray for their peace.  Healing is hard.  I know my prayers and others' prayers softened the pain.  I know the Lord carried me when I could no longer walk.  I just hope and pray those with such fresh pain are blessed with the same.

Paranoid

When a mom has lost a baby--or maybe I should just say since I lost a baby--everything that may harm or endanger one of the remaining children is terrifying.  Many people identify with this Disney princess or that Disney prince.  At one time, I identified with Belle and Mulan.  Now, I'm Marlin from "Finding Nemo" and its sequel.  Well, Marlin and Dory since one of the symptoms of mourning is forgetfulness.  A helicopter parent is more standoffish than I usually feel when I take my kids into public.  I'm a fighter drone parent, hovering as close as it's possible to my kids without riding their shoulders.  My greatest fear is more loss.  I've read John Douglas's FBI perspective on violent crimes.  Some part of me fears that the second I leave my kids unguarded, they'll become another headline, another statistic.

I'm right now reading Jenny Hess's In His Hands,  a book about an LDS mom's loss of her little boy.  They went sledding on a family vacation, and the boy and his dad hit a tree.  The boy died of the impact.  I'm going to have a hard time letting my kids go sledding after this.  I feel empathy for that mom.  I can't imagine losing a child at the age of four or later when you've actually had the time to get to know them.  But I really get what it is to have all the trust, all the safety you imagined there to be in the world, shattered over loss.  Most people who haven't lost children walk through their lives imagining a safety bubble around their kids.  It's not possible to lose a child because they haven't yet.  It's not even a possibility.  That was me before I lost Alli.  Now, I imagine horrors behind every corner.  I would do almost anything to avoid loss again.

My girl is napping in the other room with flu.  It's all I can do not to shake her awake because I've heard the phrase "flulike symptoms" altogether too many times in those articles about sudden and medically flukish deaths.  I know she needs her rest.  But I don't rest well when there is any danger at all to my kids.

I'm sure I'm not alone.  My logical side knows all the fear, all the worry, in the world won't protect them.  I know only the Lord can protect them, and only He can decide whether they stay or go.  When my girl was three--just after Alli died--she had a seizure on the beach.  I was so freaked out that loss was happening again.  I got a priesthood blessing that told me my kids had missions on this life, that they had a higher purpose.   I've come back to that many times when I've been overcome with fear for any reason.  I keep telling myself they will be fine.  But I still have to fight off that fear, that understanding one loss means there can be others.  It would be nice to go back to a trust that my kids have a safety bubble.  But I can't.  All I can do is pray and move forward, hoping whatever their missions are in this life will take a very, very long time.

The Birthday

It's coming up this week, my angel's birthday.  I haven't started feeling it yet, which is good.  I always like when I can avoid thinking about it for as long as possible.  I'll deal with the emotional field mines when they come.  It would be nice if they can wait until Thursday, her actual birthday.  This countdown to blast off emotions reminds me of her actual birthdate, which is 3-2-10, 3210, a literal countdown to ground zero.  Even as I write this, I'm hearing one of the songs that helped me through the dark days after her loss plays.  It's "Be Still" by Hillary Weeks, who I understand is the number one Christian recording artist.  Several of her songs spoke to me when it felt like no other light could penetrate the dark cloud in which I resided.  It's only as I write this and hear that song that I feel that day coming like thunderclouds dragged toward me by a merciless wind.

I know I will survive.  I have survived five others just like it with a trip to the LDS temple, a birthday party to celebrate her short life, homemade presents from the kids, her abbreviated baby book, and an angel food cake.  She would be seven.  That's a big girl, full of personality and hugs I won't receive until we're reunited again.

I have to work that day.  I'm not sure whether to view it as a blessing (that busyness will help me not think) or a curse (that no matter what I do, I'll be unable to do anything about those thoughts that will come).  There is just no winning on that day or on her death day four months later.  I'll try to turn it into a celebration and see if I can turn that day from the deep emotional dark hole I fear it may be to a day full of smiles and gratitude that I got those four months with my precious angel.

Graduation

Recently, I went to my kids' graduation from their respective grades.  I had no idea that such a benign activity would lead to the kind of trigger I mentioned in last week's post.  As I watched the kindergartner's sing their song, it occurred to me that my little girl would have been one of them.  I usually think of my angel as a baby.  But the reality is babies don't stay babies for long.  It was one of those moments like in Disney's "Sleeping Beauty," where Maleficent scoffs that for years, her servants have been searching cradles for a princess that would long since outgrown them.  My imagination keeps searching cradles for a baby when children the age she would have been would have just graduated from kindergarten.  The tears sprang to my eyes when it occurred to me they were missing one of their number and always would be.  It was meant to be a moment of celebration, but for me, it was a moment of mourning.

I imagine there will be more moments like that as I notice more and more events she would have been part of had she still been here.  At the same time, I believe in the resurrection.  I believe I will raise her one day.  She will come back and do all of these things that it feels like she will be doing now.  But in the meantime, there will still be a hole in my heart, and I will still hit triggers like this.