It is April 18Th and I remember this day, the last day home, the trip to the hospital we made, the long night and morning, letting you go...
I love you Stevie. It will be four years tomorrow. You would be 23, a student at Cornell, we would have sold this house and moved to East, to be close to you, to be a part of your adventure. You would say not to come, to let you grow up and do this on your own but I know you would be happy that I was not far away, we would find a big house not far from the campus that I would spend years fixing up because I love it and hate it and I am good at it. I would do your laundry, Dad would help you with physics and you would be blissed out.
How old are you in heaven? Are you still 19 or do you just not count days because they have no meaning where you are?
God I hope there is a heaven bunny, and I hope there was a big party when you got there and it has been nothing but beauty and discovery for you since you arrived. I hope you have missed us but not too much. I hope you get to sleep as long as you want and eat what ever you like. I hope you have a big fat cruiser bike you ride on the beach. I hope you have found the best pic-nic spots with big redwood trees and soft grass.
No baby for me, I cried. I told myself I would not try again but I am, one last time,everything that could have gone wrong did. I should have taken that as a sign that it was not meant to be but I woke up one morning after the bleeding started and decided that in April I needed to try one more time because it was April and how could I not...
Tomorrow I will go to the cemetery, not sure what flowers to bring but I bought some green apples and little tangerines for you. I won't stay long, if I do I fall apart and I don't want to. I want to visit the body you once lived in that I loved so much and tell you how much I miss you. Then I need to leave before I start rewinding everything.
I watched a movie called "Rabbit Hole" last night, it was hard, I cried, but I needed to see it for some reason. There is a scene where people are sitting in a circle at a support group for grieving parents and they were talking about feelings of loss. There are some people who have been coming to it for years and years...I don't want to be like that, stuck, so sad, and forever identifying with that and nothing else.
I know everyone has their own internal clock, and there is no schedule for grieving but at some point there has to be more than just the grief, right? You have to shower, eat, drive carpool and plant things. There is work to be done still, children to raise, a house to clean, places to see, and a life that needs living. Staying in one place for too long is not an option really.
There is a part int the movie where the mother who has lost her son asks "Does it ever go away?" and her mother tells her "No, it doesn't, you hold onto it because it is all you have left, it 's like a brick in your pocket, and you learn to live with it there. Some days you hardly notice it, then you will dig around looking for something else and there it will be". I can live with the brick, it is not a choice, but I also choose to fill my pockets with so many things that the brick is easy to carry that when I find it or it finds me it is a part of everything.
You are not a brick, the grief is. You are still you, and still my daughter and this love I feel for you never changes.
I wish you could come home, I wish I could visit heaven. I wish my faith was stronger and the God I believed in as a child still belonged to me and would tell me where you are.
Come to me in my dreams tonight, wake me up, let's play Candy Land and tell secrets. I will paint your toenails pink, and you can tell me things that will make me laugh. We will stay up all night being silly, holding hands, and before morning, before the sky turns you can promise me you are not far away...
I love you sweetness,
mama
