Why? (Eight Years)

Eyes burning, throat constricted, I want to scream and break things. To stand howling in the wind, at the world… Why?  Why my child? My protector of the small. My girl so full of life that her tiny body could barely contain it.

She is gone. Rotting. Left vibrant only in our memories, in our pictures, in random recordings which capture her voice, her face, her laughter, her getting high. WHY?

What could we have done differently? At any point, before she began experimenting, during her initial drug use, or after when she was hooked and convinced that she was beyond hope. Was there anything more that we could have done? Should have done.

I think about this constantly. So much of life is about striving to be better, to be more successful. There is one place that this really matters beyond all doubt. As parent’s we owe it to our children to learn from past mistakes and use that to be better, don’t we? How could I have been better? What didn’t I do? What did I do? I need so badly to know, and I know I never will.

Is there a time that I yelled when I could have been gentle? Should I have found a way to be more engaged? I wish that I would have known which signs were meaningful. When I should have left her alone and when I should have refused.

Why my sweet girl? I used to think that life only gave you the lessons you could handle… what you were meant to learn. But these things cannot happen in a world with any grand design. Lost children, destroyed by diseases that they were too young, naïve, and irresponsible to avoid. This is not how it is supposed to go. 

And I must remember that this was not my story. It was her story. Her beautiful, epic, tragic story. I would give anything to have her back, but none of this was my choice.  Not even having her, really. Because there was never an option not to. From the moment that little being took hold my future was written. Was hers? Eight years later and I still can't believe it ended like this.

Eight years... just thinking about that is enough to push me back over the edge.

I can talk myself into and out of blame for hours. I can hold this conversation with myself forever. But I can never answer why. I can never get closer to understanding why I do not get to hug her anymore. Why she doesn't get to have all of the chapters she is supposed to in her life. In her story.

I want her back with a desperate rage that I cannot contain. With a grief that will, I think, forever be bigger than me and my broken heart. I do not forgive the person who left her. I do not forgive this world that took her from me. I do not forgive myself. And if there is a grand design, I find myself hating it.

I must admit that ultimately, there is no reason. There is nothing fair, there is nothing I can cling to that allows me to make sense of this loss. There is no answer to my question. There is no why.

Elannah Rose (left) and me