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

Holiday Blues

This time last year my daughter had just come home from rehab. We were going on walks every night and as we would walk through the neighborhoods fully decked out with Christmas lights we debated over how to properly decorate a Hanukkah house.

I remember how normal it felt, how peaceful – and how much I felt like I finally had my baby back. It was really the first time since her addiction took over her life (and ours) that I started to feel hopeful that everything would be OK.

Tonight, as I drove by all of the fully decked out houses and parked in my bare driveway, I felt so sad. Even after everything we had already been through I think back on those nights and think of how naive I was. Hopeful is a better word, but tonight I find myself thinking that hopeful is just naive dressed up.

It’s hard not to feel robbed and ripped off and angry. My daughters struggle is over, and oddly I sometimes feel grateful for that – for all of the things that she didn't get reduced to, for the fact that she doesn't have to fight her own demons anymore.  But even though she is now at peace, I can’t seem to find any.

I can practically hear people thinking “it’s been six months, when is she going to get her shit together?” I honestly don’t know. Every few weeks I manage to moderately pull myself together, start responding to phone calls and emails and text messages, start to manage my calendar and my bills, and then everything falls apart again and I’m trying to pull everything together at the last minute because my mind won’t manage the finer details anymore. Six months doesn't feel like all that long any more. Time is dragging, but it’s also speeding by – so that occasionally I am shocked that she’s been gone so long.

I keep trying to figure out how she felt, why she made the choices that she made. I can’t get my mind around the lack of caution that causes someone to try those kinds of drugs and the chemical or emotional reaction that makes them keep going back. It’s so confusing and devastating to know that nothing we did mattered in the end and that I can never truly understand. It doesn't matter how many times I comb through her notebooks or talk to her friends or to any expert. I am lost and even though I am traveling through this awful time with my amazing and supportive family, I am somewhat alone.

I imagine what people think about my girl, what I have thought about addicts at various times and I think of who she was - all of the "hers" that existed over the course of her life. She was someone perfect and precious and I am trying so hard to focus on those things that I did understand about her.

I want it to be last December, and to be able to find some way to save her. I want to understand what I did wrong so that I can protect and guide my remaining children. I want to stop having to explain that I had three children, and now I have two. I want to be hopeful again, I want to have faith. I have a feeling it will take awhile.

My baby girl

Every Day Things

Baby Girl,

Every day things have gained the power to completely disarm me.

We go to the movies and I sob through the entire thing.

It used to be our thing, what you and I did together. I know... it doesn't seem so special - but to a mom whose teenage daughters life is in complete turmoil it is unbelievably special.

To a mom who can't communicate with her daughter without constant misunderstandings... having something special that always feels good... that thing becomes sacred.

I miss having you tease me when I tear up.

I miss giggling with you about how good something is going to be.

I miss making plans with you.

I miss sitting next to you and talking.

I miss sitting next to you and not talking.

You are supposed to be here with me. You are supposed to be planning your future. You are supposed to be driving me crazy.

Someday, when we're both old, you're supposed to take care of me. Agonizing over whether you can bring me home to live with you.

Someday you're supposed to bury me.

This is not the way our lives were supposed to go. This is a mistake.

Please come home. We are waiting.

Love, Mommy

6 months

Baby Girl,

It's been six months since we lost you. Technically, at this time six months ago your daddy and grandpa were saying goodbye to you for what would be the last time. You were laughing and joking with them and everything seemed perfect.

I was angry when I got home and realized that you had blown off your AA meeting. I was angry a few hours later when you missed curfew. You were already gone by then, and I was thinking about how irresponsible you were being by not answering your phone.

I was angry when I heard the door open at about 11:00. I was angry because you were late. When I walked into the living room and saw this stranger I knew something was terribly wrong, but I couldn't comprehend. When she told me you were gone I had to ask her to repeat herself over and over again. And then I started screaming. I woke your brother and sister. I can still see their confused faces standing in the hallway as I tried to swallow my screams.

These memories haunt me. I can't get around it. I don't feel better as time passes, the horror isn't fading. But there are other things I remember, too. Moments I wouldn't trade for anything. The moments that not only shaped you, but shaped me as well.

I am grateful for the first time I heard your heartbeat, for the first time I held you in my arms. With your birth I was reborn, into a (very) young adult - into a mother. I crossed into my future, into our lives. I never regretted a moment, I never mourned my "normal" youth. I had you. I didn't need anything else.

I am grateful for our years together, just you and me. I remember how overjoyed I was every day when I finished my classes and I would come pick you up from daycare. Your presence in my life made all of the studying and struggling worthwhile. You took care of me as much as I took care of you - from cuddling with me through my migraines to simply being present and carefree.

My memories of you are a treasure, I spend so much time in them these days. I am grateful for every one of them. You made me laugh, you gave me a reason to be strong, you made my life worthwhile. I'm still angry that you're gone, I would be lying if I tried to say otherwise, but it doesn't stop me from being grateful for every moment of your life.

I love you, Baby Girl. I continue to try to learn from both of our mistakes so that I can be a better mom, wife, friend - a better person in every aspect. I try to remember to be grateful and gracious even when my heart feels like it can't bear it any more and my instinct is to lash out at the world.

It's been especially hard recently with everyone preparing for the holidays. I'm struggling to get into the mood when all I want to do is hide from their good cheer. Today - the day that marks the sixth month since your death - was especially frustrating and sad. I am grateful that your auntie knew, once again, what I needed and brought me to see you. That my friends sent me special notes, so that I knew not only that they remembered me, but that they remembered you.

These are strange things to be grateful for, because they were born from tragedy, but without these things I don't think I would make it. And so, I want to say that I am grateful for our family, for our friends, and for the strength that they lend me on a daily basis.

You are so loved, even in death. We  are not whole without you, but we are grateful for every moment we had with you.

Good night, Baby. Happy Thanksgiving. As always, I hope that you are at peace and somewhere beautiful, with lots of singing.

Love,
Mommy

4 1/2 Months

Baby Girl,

I miss you so much. I think about you every day. I stare at the pictures that surround our home and my desk and I get lost in your face. I would say that the nights are hardest, but I think it just depends on the moment. I think the nights are the most honest. Everyone else is asleep and I am just left alone with you and horribly without you.

Tonight I am awake because the dogs were barking at some noise and in my sleep fogged mind I thought for a moment that it was you coming home. But the reality is that it's just that you are ever present on my psyche and so I think everything is you.

I finally went through the photos and videos on your SD card today. You had 932 of them. The videos of you singing were the hardest. It was a gift in one sense, but these foraging expeditions always leave me with a heightened sense of loss.

The hall closet is full of photos of you, too. I can't make myself look in there and so I know it's turning into chaos even though all of your "aunties" came and helped me sort through the pictures. I was going to scan them and organize them and put them in books so that I could look at you anytime I want. But I remember almost every story that goes with those pictures and it breaks my heart as much as it heals it.

The garage is the same, I can't go in there. I know that it is complete and utter chaos now, but to go in I have to see your boxes and it's too painful of a reminder. I want you home with me, I want to tuck you in at night and wake up and see you in the morning. I want to make up for everything and love you until your pain goes away. And I want you here so that my pain will go away.

I think your absence finally hit your brother. He screamed for you forever on Sunday. He's been saying you are just at work and you'll come home, but I think his little three year old heart just finally realized that it's just not true. I watched it rip your sisters heart out and I was helpless to do more than watch, and pray that she would be able to hold it together long enough for us all to comfort him.

I go to group therapy now. It's the closest I can get to any formal counseling. There is something to be said for being in a room full of people that can share my pain, that really know what it feels like. It's a horrible grace. I was angry at them the first few times that I went. Most of the folks at those first couple of meetings seemed so "ok" and I hated them for it. I didn't want to be alright, I just wanted to be in a room filled with someone elses pain for awhile. I was ashamed of it, but it was true. I don't know what I want anymore. I think I go because I'm supposed to. I wonder if that is how you felt about your meetings?

I remember you every day. I remember my brave daughter, who was the protector of the small. I remember your strength and courage, and I remember your struggles. I remember how good you were and how blessed you made those around you feel. I will never forget, and I will do my best to honor you every moment that I live

You were an angel in life and I know you continue on that path today. I love you so much, Baby Girl. You are still my miracle, and I would not trade one moment of the blessings you gave me by being in my life for relief from this pain.

Love, Mommy

Hard Learned Lessons

A friend shared some difficulties she was having with her children with me the other day, and I tried so hard to think of something helpful to say to her. I felt that after everything that I had been through I should have some wisdom to pass on. That is the whole point of this blog, after all. The hope that in some way my experience can help someone, that my baby girls life will serve as a lesson to someone else – that she will be able to shine brightly even after death has taken her from me.

These hard learned lessons include the following:

• In this logical world we talk ourselves out of what our intuition knows to be true. My intuition told me that my daughter was more troubled than I let myself believe. I will never stop wondering if I could have saved her if I would have fought harder earlier on in her addiction. Trust yourself.
• Don’t sweat the petty shit… I know it’s trite, but it’s so important. I spent so much of my daughter’s life worrying about things that would have come together if I would have just been able to relax… I lost precious time with my baby and it will never be made up for. Sitting at her graveside doesn't do anything for her. Sitting at her bedside would have.
• Be patient and be present. In all of my failings, this is my greatest. I worked far more than I needed to in order to be a good provider, and in doing so I failed to let my baby know that she was among the most important parts of my life. Her belief that there was distance between us was further supported by my often impatient nature – I was so worn out that I wasn't the mother I now wish I was. I can make this up to my two remaining children; I can never not fail her.
• I don’t have to know everything, I just have to listen. Not knowing how to help her sister deal with my babies death makes me realize that sometimes having the answer isn't important. Listening and hugging and sometimes screaming together can be enough. Again, it just requires listening to your heart, and to the people you love who are in pain – your heart can lead you better than your brain.
• It’s OK to be mad. Or sad. And it’s actually OK to be happy. Don’t hide behind your misery.

It doesn't seem like much, when I put it on paper. I will probably add more lessons as time goes on and my pain dulls and I start to recognize the new wisdom that takes seed from this horrible experience. It's hard to think of something good coming out of my daughter’s death. I will accept my lessons, and pray that it will help to save someone else.