too much

I was out of the house all day.

Lesson learned….it was far too long. I feel like I need to re-set my body and mind. Get settled in again with myself….

We went to the cemetery this morning. We picked her plot…the plot..that one day.. . . hopefully sooner rather than later I will share with her.

I  feel like I should delete that sentence. I feel like I am not supposed to feel that way…like it makes me a total crap mom to my other 3 beautiful babies. Like I don’t appreciate them…

…I do..but not enough…probably not the way I should be.

I’m sorry loves.

We like the plot. Its in a area with other newer headstones and good grass. So it doesn’t look like the outside of the haunted mansion ride. I will never ride that again…I used to love halloween…will I hate it now? Its 3 days after her birthday and 3 days after we were told she would die…

..be killed by cancer.

Then there are all the costumes of ghosts and zombies…yards decorated with tombstones. How in the world am I supposed to explain to my boys why all of that is used to be scary?? When for us it symbolizes a connection to our Jennifer.

I think I have the general layout for her headstone too. It has mattered a lot to me to make it just right. This surprised me. I figured I wouldn’t really care about that. But all of it matters..Its something I can finally control again.

.. its also my last tangible connection to her. To her life. 6 years…

Wow. When I think of 6 years…when I remember back to before her it feels so long ago. Like I can hardly remember that time. That’s so scary. I have so many years left to live without her….And how in so many ways those years feel like a lifetime…(did I really just write that? so ironic) that it scares me to imagine how long my lifetime will be…

She is so quickly leaving me. I am trying to remember what it felt like to hold her…to hear her breathe in my ear and feel her kiss on my cheek. Why? Why am I so quickly forgetting?

I wonder if I am still in shock? Have I been in shock for 4 months since we first heard …DIPG….no cure….9 months.. I can’t explain it but it still doesn’t seem real…none of it. But I cry. So hard. An almost constant feeling of unease and thinking about her and what life will be like without her…but I don’t think I realize I am already living life without her.

I just cannot believe she is really gone, 3 weeks tomorrow. That she got a brain tumor. That we never even had a chance to fight…It just went so fast. And I want her back. With every ounce of my being I yearn.

I want her back.

To outsiders I will never again be a mom of 4…2 boys and 2 girls. A perfectly perfect family.

Today being gone all day…I feel like I was in a fight. My whole body aches. I think its from physically holding it together all day. I had no idea I was doing it…until I was home again…and wasn’t.

After the cemetery we drove. To help Charlotte nap. To escape.  Tony decided to take me to Los Altos. Where I grew up. Where we spent so much time with Jennifer her first 18 months of life. We ate at a shopping center that held a lot of memories. So many people came up smiling about baby Charlotte…especially her hair. How are these people just living and smiling?

How is the rest of the world still spinning when my whole world is destroyed? Not just losing her. But losing the mother I was, losing the life I had…we had.

our illusion of safety.

We drove past the house I grew up in before heading back to Gilroy. My boys were at my parents so we went there.

During the drive a friend texted. Her son…a few months older than our Nicholas said Jennifer and another girl..with a name jarringly similar to another little cancer princess who passed away yesterday..came to his room. She was going to get him water. Totally Jennifer. Taking care of a younger child.

 

…my friend talked to her. Told her to come hug mommy.

Did you hear her sissy? Are you listening? I miss you baby girl…why don’t I feel you too?

And our poor sweet Jonathan. He had an idea for how she could come visit from heaven. I told him he can see her in his dreams and I believe it. That the dead can visit us in our dreams…and he reminded me I had told him once that “its not real its just a dream” So I tried to explain…the unexplainable the best I could…but I failed.

the unabashed joy in his face…as he realized she could come back…

that I had to smash…reminding him that her body didn’t work anymore. It was like telling him she was dead all over again.

 

And today he reacted to that. He was so overflowing with emotions today. So draining for us. I cant imagine how exhausting it is for him. Because he fights it. And often ends up over compensating for it…

He is struggling for sure. But also working so hard at being an amazing big brother…just like she taught him.

As I write this I realize how lucky I am. …and then I feel worse all over again.

 

Tony is angry. When he hurts his anger comes up. At night though he holds her nigh nigh. Her first lovie. Going to bed last night it almost broke me…my big strong husband…clutching a stuffed duck. Her stuffed duck…

 

..his dead daughters stuffed duck.

 

 

 

 

 

Instead of anger…I start to go numb…you know that feeling when your leg goes asleep, pins and needles…well I think thats what happens to my hurt. It goes to sleep.. I retreat. I become a shell….I guess we are both self protecting and preserving because this is too much to absorb all at once….

but how can it ever not be..

.. .too much?