I have always been pretty good at remembering dates, seasons, etc. I can recall exact days from 20 years ago easily, so it has never been a surprise to me that I can remember exact dates of events with Grace but what did surprise me from early on was the way that I was affected by things.
For instance, I began to realize that I struggle a LOT just before her birthday in March. and I also begin to struggle again mid July and into August. I also struggle around Christmas time. This isn't something that just stopped after a few years but has persisted into today, 11 years later. A few years ago during a session with my therapist, I was frustrated with myself for the ways I still struggle, I felt like I was failing everyone because I simply drop so many balls and my emotions become so difficult for me to manage at certain times, and she kindly reminded me that I have complex trauma. She said it makes complete sense to her. Our bodies recognize small things that maybe our brain can't even process as a trigger but it is, my body knows that its coming up to August, and that is when my sweet girl died, I do not even need to tell it that, my body has already remembered with the temperatures and the cicadas, and the ice cream and the pools...
With her help, I have been able to be much less activated all of the time but of course my brain will always remember the dates and the significances and the events. I have a lot more work to do, but I do not stay in the deeply hard places nearly as long as I used to. I was stuck for so long, and while I am no longer stuck, I will always remember and that is ok.
Eleven years ago around this very time I walked out of Mott for the very last time, the person I used to be. I did not yet hold the label of "grieving mother" a name that I will hold for the rest of my life. I will never not grieve, every second of my life. I had absolutely no idea that the trajectory of my life was so very close to changing forever.
The hospital was being redone, while it was months away from completion, a new path to the parking garage had just been opened. It was shorter than the route had been for the last 4 months. I walked it around midnight, thinking how incredibly tired I was, how I couldn't wait to have my girl home. But I also was grateful, I knew how lucky I was that she was alive because there had been a lot of losses in the NICU over the last few weeks. And yet, at the same time I just felt down. I wanted to stay longer but I knew that Adam was home with the boys and needed to work the next day, so I needed to go home.
I passed one of her Drs on the way out, we stopped to chat about how great she looked, how he couldnt believe she was still here and asked if she would be going home soon. I said I hoped so. I never in a million years imagined I would never see her alive again after that day.
Looking back I simply cannot believe that I missed out on my daughters last two days alive because of money. Driving an hour each way to the hospital was expensive and Adam drove an hour each way the opposite direction to work each day. Our bank account was quickly dwindling and we knew that when she came home, we would have a lot of expenses and appointments etc. We had made the decision that we would stagger being with her, so on the 8th he left work and spent the evening with her and then on the 9th it was "my day". I was waiting for him to get off of work so that I could go see her but she passed before that happened.
The next time I walked out of that hospital, it was with a cart full of my daughters things, and a shattered heart.
It has taken a great many years, but I can see the goodness of God throughout this, and I am so grateful for His provision and healing. I am grateful that I can sit here tonight and remember this and honor this but I am not undone. I am grateful that both Adam and I had one last day with her. But there is also much regret for those who did not get the time with her. For the pictures that were never taken and the arms that never held her warm body. We never thought this turn would be taken, we didn't see this coming.
Tonight, as I sit here, I am ok but I can remember so clearly, the weight of her on my chest, the way her mouth opened as she slept, the way she always slept with her face turned up towards mine, and her hand that would grip my hoodie strings and I wish I'd known just how fleeting those moments were, I grieve tonight, knowing I would have never gently laid her in her crib and walked away, had I known it was going to be the last time.
My mind, and my body can not forget, but my heart swells with one beat at how sweet those memories are, and it shatters with the next, at how much they still hurt.
