Backsliding

This is the time of year when I feel like I’m backsliding into a broken heart. I spend the year healing, learning to become more comfortable in my current state, figuring out how to be without my firstborn child. In May, as we draw closer and closer to her death day, I feel a hole growing inside of me. I sit on the brink of tears, the smallest thing tipping me over the edge. 

It always takes a few days to adjust to the constant intensity. From July through April I’ve learned to adapt and roll with this persistent grief. May and June are not my friends. They are not the time to make decisions, changes, sometimes even conversation. 

This year I feel guilty as I feel the loss washing over me. Who am I to wallow when so many are grieving, scared, and in a silo while Covid 19 strikes fear in our hearts and the worldwide lockdowns ravage our security, both financial and emotional. 

But grief is a selfish master. I want my daughter back. I want to hear her laugh. I would take everything and anything to have her creating joy and trouble. I give in to this selfishness, I want to stop explaining that I really have three kids. I want her to be 28, not forever 19. More than anything, I want to hug my child.

Unfortunately, the magic that brought this girl to me was a one-time thing. I wish I could sleep through the part of the year that makes it so hard to find a way forward. I wish I could stop backsliding, even though I am horrified at what that would mean. 
I am incomplete without her.