11 Months

Dear Jen,

Today is eleven months to the date that you died. I still can barely say those words, let alone read them, without wanting to die myself. I miss you so much. I constantly feel like a knife is ripping me apart, slicing me into pieces, bleeding my soul all over the floor. Sunshine is a huge part of why I am not lying in a hole somewhere right now and I believe I have you to thank for that. No matter what anyone says, I feel in my heart that you somehow were instrumental in making all of this possible to help me somehow try to get through this. I know that you know it’s not easy. Watching our family struggle is terrible, each of us closed off in our pain. I wonder where you are.

On your one year death day anniversary your daughter will start kindergarten. I can’t believe that day is coming because I remember when she was a tiny, tiny baby and I flew out to visit you for two weeks. You met me at baggage claim with her in the stroller, all bundled up for a freezing upstate winter and I was in awe of this amazing little being and you were a mom. Now she is too big for me to carry. She puts on singing shows, dancing around the house and now I have my own little one to care for. I wish I could ask you all sorts of questions.

The fact that I have to walk through life alone, without you, tears at me every day. Losing you has created a new identity for me and I am unsure of who to be as this new person. Nothing feels right, everything is a mess and I am really floundering. But I put on a good front, I think. I look like I have it all together. No one asks me anymore how I am. I don’t think I’d tell them even if they did. No one wants to hear how I’m crying on the inside but wearing a smile on my face to hide it.

Love, me

Dates

Coming up on the one year anniversary.

Setting the date for the unveiling of my sister’s headstone.

Arranging for the rabbi and the ceremony itself.

Wanting the ground to open and swallow me whole.

In Dreams

Last night I finally dreamed about my sister.  I’ve been waiting for this for so long.

The details of the dream are so crazy that I can’t put them into words but at one point, it starts raining and the whole place floods.  We have to escape.  I”m with my husband and I see my parents and they have her body and we have to help them get out.  We are all in canoes and we’re paddling away when Jen opens her eyes and starts to speak to me.  But the thing is that she’s dead and she says that she’ll only be around until about November and then she has to go away forever and won’t be back to see me again.  I tell her that’s ok and it doesn’t seem strange at all to me that my sister’s corpse just opened her eyes and talked to me.  I felt really comforted by it.

Then I woke up and couldn’t fall back to sleep, seeing the image on repeat in my mind.

I know I only had that dream because yesterday my parents and I were talking about what we’re doing for Thanksgiving.  My sister always had Thanksgiving at her house; last year we all went up to my brother-in-law’s sister’s house.  And while that was enjoyable, things have gotten progressively worse between him and my parents.  They just don’t get along.  It hurts so much.  I’m afraid we’re losing him and my niece without Jen here to bring us together.  So my parents were saying they don’t think my brother-in-law will want them around this year for Thanksgiving and were talking about going to visit my uncles.  I think my husband and I are going to spend Thanksgiving with his family this year, for the first time ever.

It all just feels a mess, like certain parts of my life are crumbling and I can’t do a thing to stop it.

Thinking

Don’t call something by a name that it’s not, just to get around a fact. Simply state what it is. Things are much better out in the open than hid quietly behind closed eyes.

Of course, who am I to judge.

I hide things from people all the time, but it’s mostly just my emotions, and don’t I deserve to do that?

This is different.

Today

God I miss Jen so much right now. She’s the one I would have gone to with all of my feelings of hurt, anger, frustration, loneliness, feeling left out, hopeless, powerless. These are feelings I used to drink away but I don’t do that anymore and now I’m left feeling like I don’t know what to do. Where I’m left pacing the halls, cradling my newborn, a giant lump in my throat and no one to turn to.

Thought

I can’t get this out of my head.

Would I trade my daughter to have my sister back?

I know it’s impossible and would never happen. And I hate myself for answering no.

Fresh From the Bath

I usually don’t do a lot of pink but it’s laundry day.

Letter

Dear Jen,

Today it’s raining, perfect to fit my mood.  Missing you so much right now.  How many times can I say life will never be the same?  Today is just another example of that.  Plans for the day: drive to the city, see Kyle’s family, have dinner, not go to the fireworks, miss you all day and try not to cry.  I’ve failed on the last one already but as long as I’m alone, it’s ok.  But I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t want to share my pain with anyone.  I prefer to express it alone.  So I cry in the shower or up in the nursery or when I’m home by myself.  It’s just easier that way.

Love, me.

The Day Before

Tomorrow I turn 30 and all I can think is my birthday is tomorrow and my sister is dead.

I wonder how long it will be like this, where I acknowledge every milestone with the thought that Jen is gone and I will never see her again and that something is happening and she’s not here. I think that in some way, it will be like this forever but maybe over time, it will move more to the background?

My mother-in-law’s brother died from cancer at least 35 years ago, when she was in her mid 20’s, and when she talks about him, it is in a matter of fact sort of tone. I wonder if her heart still hurts as much now as it did then, and how will I be in 35 years, when I am 65 and my sister will have been dead for 35 years. Will time make it hurt less? I think I’ll miss her as much then as I do now.

In the flurry of all the firsts without her–my dad’s birthday, my brother-in-law’s birthday, Thanksgiving, my niece’s birthday, the holidays, New Years, my daughter’s birth–I had totally neglected this first without her, and it’s just starting to hit me how very sad I am. I want to be happy–my first birthday with my daughter–but the whole thing is marred, as usual.

Stealing a kiss from my little girl.