Hmmmm…that was supposed to be me clearing my throat but still, words do not come out. I have wanted to write for over a week, but honestly, Halloween choked me up so that I could not speak much less write. I’m still reeling from the whole idea of it. It is amazing to me as an observer, and crippling as the one experiencing it.
Lately, I think a lot about people who are for all intents and purposes no longer in my life. They are there. I love them, our friendship lives on, but I don’t see them. Erin’s friends, their parents, our neighbors. I mourn them too, because I miss what we had. I cannot embrace what we have, because it doesn’t include Erin. One could say, move forward out of this self-imposed limbo, but I don’t know where to go.
I watch the Forensic Files every night when I go to bed, and the other night this man described missing his sister as someone heating up a pitch fork, then shoving it into your heart. I agree. He didn’t elaborate, but mine stays there, searing away all the time. It never lets up. I get distracted sometimes, and when I come back to me, sure enough it’s still there. I wonder why we must suffer the death of our children in this realm. It seems cruel, and unusual.
I’m not sure I have had an entirely grief related post in awhile, but that is all that I can think of this past week. I don’t bother people with it, so I bother them here (so to speak). When most people ask me how I am, I say fine. I’m not fine. My life sucks. The brightest, happiest moments are now forever shaded with the blackness of grief. I know that when we cross over and leave our human bodies behind, we no longer feel the same type of emotion that we feel in these darn things. I know that. I know she is fine. I know that she doesn’t want me to be so sad, because she is fine. I’m not fine though. Shaun’s not fine. We put on a happy face each day for the world because we know how uncomfortable our grief makes everyone else. It’s for you…it’s not how we really feel. If you wondered, now you know.
I have done a lot of soul searching over the last few months, again, and have come to greater understandings. None of them make me feel any better. Yes I believe in many things, but none of them provide comfort until the day I am standing beside Erin again. If that day is tomorrow or ten years from now, then that day I will be fine again. And not knowing when that day is, I mourn, not just daily but every minute. I miss her, and I just can’t help that.
We got a lovely, anonymous, note today with a small gift from a neighbor. I did not recognize the handwriting, so I don’t know which one. If you are reading this, we have received a few anonymous things, clearly in honor of Erin, and you have no idea how much it touches us. Thank you. Just knowing that people have not forgotten, us or her, makes us feel good even if for a second or two.
I’m so down today that I can’t write more. Maybe putting this on paper will help. Namaste, blessings, and #missingerin
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The daughter of a friend at the shelter (GHHS) died. I was talking to another friend who works at the shelter who told me that she read an Ann Landers column where a woman whose 4 year daughter had died. It had been several years and people, including her husband, wanted her to “move on”. Ann Landers told the woman that she now lives on a different planet than other people, and nobody will ever understand unless they, too, live on that planet. I know that is what you have been saying, but somehow I understand it better. I love you and Shaun. I still weir my missingerin bracelet. I’ve been hibernation for the last two months reading one book after another. I don’t know why. missingerin