Melt Down

Not sure why today is what it is.

I dreamed I was being given a tour of a house made out of rose quartz. It was in a different country than the one I spend my waking life in but I knew this place and had been here over and over in my dreams. There are big houses all crowded on hill tops. A colorful crowded downtown, restaurants I have eaten in and neighborhoods wandered around in searching for what? I know this place, I learn more about it each time I visit but mostly I forget about it by morning. When I am dreaming I say to myself "Oh here we are at this place again" I am a little afraid but mostly intrigued.

This morning I woke up and I said, "Oh here I am again" and I wondered why it is I wake up here everyday in this country, in this hurting place, in this room with walls made out of trees a full moon outside my window.

I floated through the morning, me, but not me. I made muffins from a cheap box of mix, they smell good but taste fake. I did a load of Laundry, I swept my studio, I put the pile of bills in a basket and set them next to my purse to remind myself I need to pay them or something bad will surely happen. I wrote "December" on the dry-erase calender and wrote in all the appointments and reminders. I drove Noah to school.

I sat in my car while my boy ran for the playground, then sat a little longer watching my warm breath in the cold air and I thought, "why can't I just see her like I see my breath, what conditions would make it possible, couldn't God take my breath and spell her name?"

A woman walked by with a double stroller and a five year old. She was frazzled trying to get her son in the gate before the last bell, trying to push a monster jogger full of babies and things babies might need. She was so thin and looked tired. I think she was skinny by choice but tired because she was a mom. I started remembering when that was me. I was never skinny but I was worn out most days.

I started thinking about how taking care of Stevie at the end of her life was like living in reverse.

When you are pregnant there is something where there was once nothing. It feels like a dream. You wait and wait as this something grows and grows. You have no idea who is coming but you love this person more than you have loved anything or anyone. You dream about her, you buy her soft clothes to spend her first days in, you arrange your life so that there is plenty of room for her.

Labor begins, slow at first. It is painful but manageable, there are spaces to rest and breath, it is exciting and scary. Then the waves crash in on each other and you are surrounded by doctors and family and everyone is telling you what a good job you are doing as you push this person out into the world. She is real, and you can not imagine a time when she was not, life is so beautiful.

You buy a stroller and bibs, you change diapers, you don't sleep. You worry, you protect and you love with intensity that could make you fly. Everyday something new. It is expected that there will be a giggle, a tooth, a first step, solid food, birthdays, running, reading, dancing, singing. All in it's own time, but it all moves forward, always forward.

When your daughter gets sick and begins to die you bring in wheelchairs, piles of clean towels, pillows, medicines, machines. Everything goes away little by little until she can not speak or eat. Soon she is small and helpless curled up next to you in bed and you worry, try to protect her and love with an intensity that could kill you.

Soon you are in a hospital surrounded by doctors and family telling you that you did the best you could and you can not wrap you heart around the fact that she is gone.

The pain is intense wave upon wave crashing and crushing you. Then slowly there are spaces to breath and rest in-between. You choose soft clothes for her to be buried in. You go home where there is too much room and you wait for someone to tell you this is just a dream. You wait and wait and wait...

I watched that mom pushing that stroller and I could tell she needed a good-nights sleep, maybe a night out without a diaper bag. She is wondering if her life will always be like this. I wanted to get out of my car and tell her that this is the best part. I wanted to tell her to hold onto every second and thank God that you get to go forward everyday.

Instead I drove home crying, feeling sorry for myself and wishing that I could walk into the house, and know that Stevie was there, taking a shower or laying in bed reading a book. I wish I could take a day like that for granted.

Healing is a bitch.

I want to go to bed. I want to crank up the heater, put on pajamas and sleep for a hundred years. I want to wander around in strange countries, walk through houses made out of rose quartz, and wonder how the hell I got there and finally find what I am looking for.

I have a life to live here in this house, with this family and this pain. It is what I am given. Maybe there are some best parts left but I can not see them, the conditions are not quite right yet.