New York Baby!

My brother, Kip, suggested my sister and I come to New York to celebrate our younger brother, Kirk's birthday (and not celebrate mine as I requested).  It was the perfect solution to my birthday conundrum (Ellie adored that word).

At Kirk's party, I suddenly had a moment of not knowing how to BE at a party celebrating.  I began to cry.  Honestly I do not have the energy to fake it right now.  Kirk ran over and knealt beside me.  I began to tell him how I was feeling then suddenly rolled into a Chris Farley Saturday Night Live routine--"I don't know how to smell good after traveling all day...I don't know how to not bore everyone in the room..." Kirk almost fell over laughing he was so surprised by my sudden turn around.  Then Susan and Kip came and sat on the arms of the oversized chair where I was nursing Lotta.  I felt completely safe and protected.  They were my gargoyles.  Any other time I think I would have felt shame for such an outburst afterwards.  This time it felt as though without the outburst, my siblings and I would not have had the opportunity to connect like that.  That was the real gift, feeling so connected to them.

Wangeness (weird strangeness) of Time

Recognizing that before Ellie passed, I projected myself into the future, anticipating my life without her.  Now, I attempt to push myself back to the past, a time when she was still with me.  Eckhart (author of The Power of NOW) would be so disappointed in me and my avoidance of the present.

As I face my days without Ellie, I am struck with this sudden and huge freedom of time.  And it is totally wange (weird strange) not having her to continually care for.  Especially at the end, I now recognize what a huge amount of time was involved in her care.  It did not seem so at the time, as we were just doing it, not thinking about it.  Thom too has noticed how at night he feels somewhat at a loss to what to do with himself.  (Of course I would trade all of this free time for 5 more minutes with my sunny honey bunny.)  It is not as if my days drag either, I get to the end of them and wonder where it went.  It is Monday then suddenly Thursday with me barely knowing what happened in between.  All of it a somewhat foggy blur.

All urgency is gone.  (Which may be why my laundry keeps becoming mountainous.  Or maybe its because my laundress is on another continent. Not complaining just observing.) We used to have not one but two monitors in Ellie's room.  Constantly keeping track of her condition--did we need to call a doctor, give a medication, go to the hospital?  Now everything feels as if it can be postponed if necessary.  Nothing has the same weight behind it. Everything feels so much slower.  At times, I feel as if I am standing in the middle of a freeway, all the cars racing past.  Surprisingly, I feel completely comfortable in this slower pace.  I guess, in a way, becoming friendlier with the silence.

I had dinner a couple of weeks ago with Ellie's award-winning 3rd grade teachers.  They mentioned something about the beginning of the school year.  I had this moment of panic, realizing autumn was a time when Ellie was alive.  I had this desperate feeling of wanting to be back then.  Trying to discover how to get two kids on the morning bus rather than trying to recover from this loss.  A time when I did not know that Ellie would be gone so soon.  A time filled with hope that she would actually get better.

For awhile, everything was measured by before Ellie's diagnosis and afterwards.  It feels as if that same type of life altering shift is happening now--before Ellie passed and after.  This is the new milestone.

My brilliant scientist friend, Jennifer, told me about a character in a book whose 11-year-old daughter drowned.  She survived this loss by every single day finding something to do to make herself smile in honor of her daughter.  Every day since Jennifer told me that, I have searched for the smiliest thing that happened that day to dedicate to Ellie.  Seems like a brilliant use of my time, and maybe a way to force me into the present.

Transforming the Surreal into Real

Before Ellie passed, I  pondered whether I would ever have enough love to let her go.  Last week, I suddenly felt as if I'd made a garangtuan irreversible mistake.  I wanted to shout, "NO I don't have enough love!!!!  I just want her back." In those moments of doubt, I wonder if we gave up too soon. 

Then I look back at photos of Ellie over the last few years.  I see the evidence of a little girl not feeling well for quite some time.  And never complaining.  Just feeling worse and worse.  I think to myself that we were trying to save that sinking ship for quite some time.  We were throwing buckets of water out as water gushed in through more and more cracks.  Yet, still, I long for her. 

Last Thursday as I was driving through my neighborhood, I looked up and saw Ellie's class on a field trip, crossing the street.  It was as if someone punched me in the stomache.  I was so suddenly struck by the fact that Ellie no longer has a physical body to walk around in.  I know this seems blindingly obvious.  Yet so hard to accept.  Then I jokingly asked Thom why they weren't locked up in a classroom somewhere so that I wouldn't have to be upset (I know lame joke).  I suppose these are all opportunities to slowly absorb this "information", making it all real, rather than surreal.

silence

the balloons have lost the will to float

the visitors are gone

the music has stopped

her clothes are put away, never to shine again

and i am left to make friends with the silence

Speechless Revisited

Ok so if I were truly speechless, I would have nothing else to say.  As Demetri Martin of Comedy Central would say, "Think about it."  (I adore his quirky humor and imagine my nephew, Dariush, will look exactly like Demetri when he grows up.  So for me, it is like sweet little Dariush telling me jokes. Seriously, I digress.) 

Here is what leaves me speechless.  Walking into Ellie's empty room.  The assumption that Ben is my firstborn by a stranger.  The disorientation.  No more made-up words (although I did make up "snough" this morning to describe a sneeze cough).   Ben giggles.  Listing the members of my household on a playgroup application.  Lotta smiles.   Sesame Street.  Feeling like a love-sick teenager, as if every single song is written about me and my lost love (with the exception of Brittany's new song, that would be weird).   Imagining the days, months, years without an Ellie.  This constant wistfulness.  No more big brown eyes overflowing with love.  The loudness of this silence. 

See those are a whole lot of words for someone rendered speechless.

Exactly!

Here is a poem sent to me by my grabulous sister-in-law, Sara.  It is  perfect.

Gone by Ronald Wallace

The sorrow one feels after the loss
of a father, a daughter, a wife, is so
intense it takes up residence in
the soul's house, shares its pain
with a dailiness that can seem un-
bearable as you go through the mundane
acts that keep you human,
the little rituals that keep complete

numbness at bay. God knows
you wish you hadn't had to
take in this unwelcome boarder,
wish you could send him away
and gain back your composure.
And then, the sorrow goes.

"Gone" by Ronald Wallace

Speechless

I am rendered speechless.  (Hard to imagine I know.)