Today is the seventh anniversary of the worst day of my life. Two more hours and it’s almost over. I’ve been surrounded by people i love, who love me, today and it has been good. but right now, i’m alone. i want to be alone. i want to sit here with my thoughts and with myself and just reflect on the life on which i can only dare to hope to compare myself. maybe one day i will have half as much love, half as much hope, half as much faith as she had, and that day i can possibly start to be complete. because right now, still, no matter how much of those things i have in my life, there is still this gaping hole left in me, that even only God can barely touch, but won’t fill. and i don’t know that i really want him to fill it, because i’m afraid that if he does, then there won’t be love left for her. and i know that’s stupid, because love doesn’t go away like that. i guess that i have comfort in knowing i still have pain, because the pain makes me know i can still feel, that i’m still alive, as if having this pain makes her still alive. i don’t even know if this makes any sense.
but it was strange, because what set me off this morning was the rain. it rained that day. it rained like i haven’t seen it rain here before. and it was raining this morning and that made it just a little too close. a little too familiar. it brought back some of the rawness.
i sewed for the first time ever, except that time in tech theatre production class where a made a pillow so small even judah’s head wouldn’t fit on it. so i don’t count that. jeanette and i cut fabric and i sewed part of part of some curtains. and i think she would be proud of me. she always wanted me to learn to sew and i never let her teach me. it was important to her and i didn’t see it. i always thought it would be boring, or something. i’m not really sure. but i learned today, and i even used the machine. i was beaming with pride. i felt like judah when she learns a new skill. i think she would be proud of me. and glad that i’m learning. today of all days, i celebrate her by learning to sew. it’s something she wanted and today i gave that to her.
i look at my daughter and wish she could know her. Hell, i look at my husband and i wish he could know her. he tells me he knows her when he looks at me. God, i hope that’s true.
i’m scared because it feels so far away that i’m afraid i’ll forget things, like the way she smelled or the way her hands looked or what she sounded like when she laughed. and i think, my God, it’s been seven years, i feel time’s pressure to be “over it” but i know i’ll never get over it. you don’t get over that kind of thing. my eyes have welled up so many times today and i’ve pushed it down, this ache inside of me because i don’t want to make others feel uncomfortable. i don’t want them to feel awkward or to feel pity. i’m afraid people will dismiss my feelings as irrational or contrived. but this year it’s just harder because i have this small little person in my life now that i can’t share with her, but she’s a part of her, and i’m afraid she will only be this distant ghost to her, this person we talk about fondly but she will never really know. i can only imagine what she would say, and how proud of judah she would be, and what she would think of the life God has given me, and the family, the husband she would love because she would know how perfect he is for me.
i thought tonight on the drive home, dear God, she was so young. you don’t expect a life that vibrant to be snuffed out so soon. weren’t there things left for her to do? how could she have already fulfilled her purpose on this life? was she not needed anymore? and I want to scream at him, I still need her, but i know i would not be the person i am today if i hadn’t gone through all that pain. and it almost makes me feel sick to think that, to say it aloud, and make it real, but it’s out there. and i know it’s true. so i live with this hole inside of me that hopes for the day i can see her again. and in the meantime, i cherish the dreams where she visits me. where she has met my husband and my daughter, where she is a living, breathing part of my life. and i hang on for dear life to my God, because when i asked him to sit with me awhile and to hold me, he said yes, and the world can pass by, because i am safe right where i am.