19 Months

Baby Girl,

I couldn't stop thinking about you yesterday. Your beautiful smile, your amazing voice, your infectious laugh. It all hung around me like a dense fog. Thick and impossible to miss, but not quite tangible.

It's bound happen more now, I guess. The holidays are a bittersweet time. I am as wrapped up in your absence as I am in the joy of the season.

I talked at great length to the mother of one of your high school friends yesterday. You used with her child. I was struck,  as I always am when I see or talk about one of your old friends, by the fact that you are gone and they are here. I try so hard not to be jealous.

What a random roll of the dice this has all been. How crazy that some addicts use for decades, and you're gone forever. It is a hard thing to reconcile, and almost impossible not to feel cheated.

I love you each and every moment of every day. I do my best to dwell on the things that mattered about you, about who you were - not on the tragic decisions you made. Most days I am successful. 

I hate that you are gone, but I am so grateful that I had you at all.

Always,
Mommy

16 months

Baby Girl,

I'm sorry I haven't written in awhile. I miss you so much, it bowls me over sometimes. In the past few months I've tried so hard to ignore how much it still hurts that you are gone.

Every so often someone asks if I'm doing better, and I just looked at them and think, "you don't really want me to answer that".

It's harder when people actually want to know. When I give some non-committal answer and they look at me like they'd like to shake me until I actually say something meaningful.

Listen, I'm not ok. I know that. I know it's awkward and scary and weird for people who actually recognize that.

I'm not in denial. But, here's the thing. I have a giant hole in my life, and nothing can fill it. I had a perfect circle of joy. My son. My daughters. My wonderful, crazy, and inappropriate family. It is broken. You broke it, in one stupid instant.

And every time someone wants to really know how that feels, I have to think about it. And that's harder than talking to people who don't really want to know. Or burying myself in my daily rituals. Daddy says I'm not processing, or even really coping. But, I feel like that's ok. I mean, it's just what is going on right now.

Sixteen months. Sixteen months without hearing your beautiful voice, seeing your radiant smile, having a fight, or listening to your bubbly laugh. It's an eternity and it has passed in slow motion, and in the blink of an eye.

You cannot love more than you love your babies. And so I have to believe that there is no wound greater than this loss. So, sometimes turning on the radio, or brushing my hair, or even just being nice... is too much. Sometimes it is all I can do to lose myself in anything that will distract me from your absence.

There are other days, where your brother and sister fill me with their life, and I can accept your death and drown myself in their joy. This is ok. I accept it, I welcome it. This grief paired with their joy reminds me that I am alive and here to carry on.

I am so grateful for your brother and sister. They fill my vision with the future, so even though I choke on the fact that you are not in it, I can look forward to it. And even, maybe someday, to the easing of the pain.

Sixteen months is not so long. I mothered you for over eighteen years, during which I probably never spent eighteen straight days away from you.

I used to tell your daddy, after we'd been together for months, that we'd known each other for minutes in the grand scheme of things. So he reminded me tonight that in the grand scheme of things, you've only been gone for minutes. Really, not enough time to get used to your absence.

Not enough time to stop being jealous when I hear other moms talking about their kids college plans. Not enough time to stop being angry that we were the ones who lost their daughter. Not enough time to stop wishing I could hold you, and tuck you in at night. Not enough time to stop agonizing over what is happening to your body, and where your soul is right now. Not enough time to be ok.

Lucky for me, I am surrounded by people who are more than happy to talk some sense into me. And who really care that even if I am not ok today, I'll still make it through to tomorrow morning. Sometimes I want to hide from them, but mostly I am smart enough to understand and grateful enough to listen.

I will miss you every moment for the rest of my life, and I will never be ok with this outcome. And it will take a long, long time before I can stop treading water and really be whatever version of ok I will be.

I love you so much, Peach. You were the best part of me, and you made me the best version of myself I could have ever wished to be.

As always, I hope that you are happy and somewhere magical and musical. And that you are singing at the top of your lungs. Someday I will sing with you again.

Love,
Mommy

Birthday

It seems unfair that the anniversary of your life and the anniversary of your death are so close together. I  barely got through one, and now the other looms ahead like a threat.

I have been spending my days fighting tears, trying to wrap myself in the safety of the here and now,  trying to get caught up in the excitement of daily life... it does work for short bursts of time, but always I am sucked back into this anxiety, this loss. Waiting for your birthday. Waiting for this sense of dread to pass. Waiting for everything to settle. Not quite into a happy pattern, but at least into acceptance.

I think I was actually better last year. At least I understood that the intensity of emotion was directly related to the immediacy of your loss. But now... I am drowning. I am lost at sea. I am breaking.

I used to look forward to your birthday celebration with such excitement. I didn't think it would come back to this. Will it always? I don't know if I can take it anymore. I'm tired, and I'm scared that this won't go away.

I lived for so long in fear that you wouldn't come home, and after it happened I put all of my energy into recovering and into protecting our family from falling apart. I thought it was working, but here I am again, just as broken as I was on that first day.

I miss you, Baby Girl. I'm lost without you, you were too much a part of me.

I don't know how to let you go, I only know that I must. And I have to do all that I can to try to believe that you are in a better place, and that you are happy, and at peace. If I can believe that, maybe I can find some peace of my own. As selfish as that feels, I desperately need to figure it out.

I love you. I pray for you every day.
Love,
Mommy

The Unveiling

On May 19th we had the service for the unveiling of my daughters headstone. This is a long standing Jewish tradition, and end to the first year of mourning, another ceremony to honor our lost loved ones lives.

I wanted to share what I suppose should be called a eulogy. What I spoke of when I honored my daughter... I did ad-lib a bit, but this is the gist of it.

In the past few weeks I have been trying to figure out what to say as we stand her next to my daughters graveside. I wanted to remark on her amazing life and all that there is to celebrate about her, to help lift us out of the sadness of this day.

I couldn't do it, my heart has been weighted down by the significance of this ceremony and I just couldn't do it.

And then last night I recalled a specific event. My daughter at two years old dragging me around by my finger as she led our way through a crowd of people. Just being around that many people would have had me crawling out of my skin, but my not quite two foot tall daughter could not be intimidated, and as in most of the adventures we had together, she carved the path that I would follow.

It was definitely true when we met our new family. Though they were most certainly hesitant when their son showed up with his new girlfriend and her daughter. My girl swept into their lives as if to say "whats not to love?"  She certainly stole their hearts first. As she stole my husbands when she met him and he courted us. She was well aware that he fell in love with her first and she became his best friend, his cohort, his partner in crime.

She absorbed everything he could teach her about life and inspired him to be a father. I know that when it came to her there was never a question of how perfectly she fit into his life.

There is so much to celebrate and there are so many joyful memories to lift our hearts. This is an amazing gift. As I sort through the huge store of photos I am grateful for my need to document EVERYTHING, because each picture tells a story I might otherwise forget.

This is our job now, to remember, even though we are still devastated by her loss. We need to ensure that my son knows his oldest sister, even though he will only know her through the rest of us.

We need to remember her, and celebrate her, keeping in mind that, at least to me, she is really what brought us all together.

My husbands curiosity about the woman with that cute little kid, and the love story that started with three people and brought us all here.

It is difficult to think of blessings in a time of such loss, but we have done many things in the past year to stay connected to my daughter. From gathering together to grieve, to digging through photos and videos, to family trips for tattoos (which I'm sure entertained my girl to no end). We have come together again and again to honor and remember her.

By doing so we have strengthened our bonds as family and friends. This is her legacy, these are the things that I choose to focus on when I think of her, so that wherever her spirit is, she feels my love.

Sharing my story is another way of honoring her, and of hopefully helping others who are going through similar things - or perhaps derailing a similar loss.  Thank you for reading.

Anniversaries

Baby Girl,

I haven't been on speaking terms with you for the last couple of months. I'm so heartbroken by what you've done that I haven't been able to think of anything nice to say to you. How could you leave us? How could you do this to your sister? I have to see what she's going through, I have to be here and help her pick up the pieces... you left us! There is a part of me that just thinks you are such an asshole! You seriously screwed all of us up and it was so damn selfish.

But it's just because I miss you so much. You have left such a huge hole in all of our hearts and lives and I don't know what to do with it.

Life goes on. It's been close to a year since you left us and I am still broken. I won't exaggerate it. I have days where I am OK .. I have moments where I'm great... but every one of those moments is eventually tainted by the fact that you are not there to celebrate it with us.

What's changed in the past year? I don't feel guilty for thinking you're a jack-ass. Because you are, you put your immediate desires above your health and safety and it cost you your life, and it cost us you. If you were here I would punch you in the face for being such a jerk. I am not in the mood to paint a pretty little picture and talk about how much pain you were in and continue to try to understand and put your feelings first. You were a selfish jerk when you put that needle in your vein and you ditched us.

It doesn't diminish the fact that I love and adore you and my arms ache to hold you.

I have been sorting through pictures again so that I could get them scanned, in books, and out of the hidden corners that I am so horrified to stumble upon on a daily basis. I still can't go in the garage. I can't open the hallway cupboard, I can't go into my top left dresser drawer.... The little nooks that I stashed your things in to deal with on another day have started to haunt me. I've forgotten where all of them are and I am startled every time I stumble across something. They are traps and I keep getting caught up in them.

And now, in the month that has not one, but two anniversary dates of your passing (the Jewish calendar anniversary and the regular one), I am overwhelmed by the significance of actually making it to these dates. I didn't actually think that I would. It's not that I planned to do anything, I'm not remotely there... I just couldn't imagine living this long without you. And here we are, performing all that is expected of us, stepping through the nightmare of yet another cycle of ceremonies.

And our hearts are still broken. And our arms ache to hold you, and so we hold each other tighter and pray that we can continue to pick up the pieces and figure out how to be OK without you, and to stop feeling guilty about it when we feel like we might be.

I love you, Baby Girl. As much as I hate that you are gone, I hope that you are at peace and singing. I hope that you look down and watch your sister play lacrosse with pride because she puts her all into it, and she wants you to know. I hope that you watch your brother and laugh at his escapades. I hope that you can forgive me for my anger, and that I can forgive you for leaving us.

Forever,
Mommy

Magical Princess

This Damn Day Again

Baby Girl,

I hate this day - the 21st of the month. It rolls around and reminds me that you are gone. Your presence is always stronger on this day. Or I guess your lack of presence. It's not like I need a reminder, I am so much less without you - less strong, less normal, less happy, less of everything that was good about me. It was lost when you were lost because being your mother was the first really good thing that I was a part of.

I have actually started going to therapy and I know that it is good for me - I know that he will help me, and right now I think the most important thing I am learning is that I need to talk about you, and I need to accept what losing you has done to me. I want more than anything to recapture what I was so that I can be a good mother again.

What I know, thanks to you, is that I was a good mother - I have to remind myself of that daily, but I know that it was true. I have to remind myself that your addiction was yours and it was not mine, nor was it my fault. But, I still have a hard time forgiving myself for not seeing your addiction early enough. How did you hide it so well? I was paying attention... I was always paying attention to you - I was always adoring you.

When you were just a few weeks old I took you to Reggae on the River. We had back stage passes because Papa was part of the stage crew, so I got to stand just behind the stage and dance with you - no crowds, just you and me. I can't remember anything about that day other than holding you in my arms and staring down at you. I was so in love with you from the moment you existed.

I feel like I spent your life blissfully in love with you, my little girl, my family. Maybe that is why I missed your drug use. I was too enamored with your perfect glow to see that you were struggling.

My biggest regret came when you were thirteen and you confessed to me that you were a cutter. It was in the midst of an ugly fight and I thought you were taunting me. I wish I would have listened to you. I will spend the rest of my days wondering if that was before you started using... if I would have gotten you help then would you be with me now? How could you forgive me? I still can't forgive myself.

Lord, I made so many mistakes I can't calculate them. If I would have been a mature adult instead of a child desperately trying to be a mom, would you have had a better chance? Did my choice to keep you doom you from the beginning? These things are always in my mind. I can't stop trying to find a way I could have saved you, though it won't do any good.

After you came home you made me promise not to let your sister make the same mistakes you had made. I felt so responsible for the choices you had made. There were so many things that made me feel that way - you were just a baby girl, after all. No one should make such terrible mistakes as a child that they pay for them for the rest of their lives. Yet, you made the ones that you knew you would always have to pay for, and I can't help but thinking you wanted to stop paying for them after all. You wanted to stop feeling worthless, you wanted to stop worrying that you had screwed up your future. So you took it away... but you took it away from all of us and you were too young to understand that you DID have a future and you were never worthless.

When I sing your brother to sleep I imagine that you are with us. I have been singing the same song almost every night for twenty years, and I will always feel you with me when I do. Each time I sing it I think it is a prayer for you - so that we will be reunited some day.

I love you so much, Baby. You are in my heart always, you still inspire me to be a better person - to be someone that deserved you.

Love,
Mommy

I looked over Jordan 

And what did I see, 

Comin' for to carry me home 

A band of angels 

Comin' after me 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

If you get there 

Before I do 

Comin' for to carry me home 

Tell all my friends 

I'll be there soon 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Sometimes I'm up 

Sometimes I'm down 

Comin' for to carry me home 

But still my soul 

Feels judgement bound 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home 

Swing low, sweet chariot 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Comin' for to carry me home. 

Comin' for to carry me home...

New Year

Baby Girl,

I miss you so much. I can't settle these days on any particular thought about you, any particular moment. My mind roams through what I know of your life as if I was watching so  many home movies. I keep trying to describe one - what was special about it, what details could allow me to convey what made you perfect to me - to all of us. My mind skips away as soon as I settle on one little piece of magic.

The last few days have been particularly difficult. I don't know if it's the fact that we are in a new year - yet another beginning that you will never share with us. Perhaps it's just the normal cycle of things - O.K. yesterday, devastated today, surviving tomorrow. Daddy seems to be in just as much turmoil, though, so it feels like something changed. I just don't know what.

I haven't been to see you in awhile. Perhaps that is what has changed - it helped me to sit there and just be where you rested. To talk to you, to read what your friends had written and to play you music. It made me feel like there was still a connection. But lately it feels like it makes your absence more palpable to sit there without you, talking to that little slab with your name stamped on it.

I'm sorry. This letter is a sad one. I don't have anything constructive to share. I don't have any new philosophy that would help me to cope with your loss. Right now I just miss you and I want you to come home. I wouldn't even mind if you rubbed your stinky feet on me.

I love you. I wish I would have made better choices. I wish I would have been more patient and made sure you could confide in me. I wish my love would have been strong enough to hold you. You were everything to me, from the moment you were born. I hope that you knew that.

Mommy