Darkness

I am sitting here in complete shock. I am stuck between reality and dream. I so badly want to push these thoughts from my mind. To wake up and have everything be OK. To have you here again. To know you for longer than five days. I am so sad. Sad that you are not here, sad that you are gone, that I don't get to know you more. You should be here now. You should be safe growing inside my belly, we should be smiling and giddy thinking about you joining our family. Rather our days are filled with tears, enough tears to fill a new ocean from bottom up. So many tissues used that we should buy stock in Kleenex. 

As I sit here I can't help but think how is this possible? How is this MY life? How did this happen? Why me? Why Daddy? Tears pour down my face and I can't stop them. My heart is so broken. I am so alone. There isn't anyone in the world who knows how alone I feel, how badly I ache, how empty I feel. This week I seriously thought I was borderline crazy. Crazy like take myself to a psych hospital crazy. I just could not imagine living life in this type of pain a minute longer. I really didn't feel like I had any reason to live. You are gone so what is the point of living everyday in constant pain? I cried and cried, I talked to Daddy and told him exactly how I felt. We talked about how going to a special hospital might help me. We also talked about how it could hurt me. At the hospital I would be taken away from him. I would spend the night in a room with a roommate, we would have limited sheets, certain clothes we could wear, shoes without laces, excessive amounts of medication to mask my feelings, to bury my thoughts. I would be forced to go to group counseling, forced to eat their food, allowed to visit Daddy when they said I could. It sounded worse than the prison of my own body and mind. At least here I have access to my true feelings. I know they are hard to live with and I know the pain is intolerable, but here I know I have Harvey, I have Daddy, and I have my family and friends. I get to sleep in my own bed, I drink my water and eat my food. I go outside and walk Harvey. I try to get better. I really try. 

This week these emotions were the worst that they have ever been. After talking to Daddy last night we chalked it up to many things. My hormones are very wacky.  I haven't slept in about three months.  I am worried about everything. I feel completely alone and deserted. And a huge factor is changed my medications recently. I hate relying on medications to control my mood. I never realized just what an effect they had on me until I stopped one drug and started another. My moods went from sad with no outward expressions of my sadness to completely devastated, depressed and an outward wreck. I was mean, my words were hurtful, I fought so hard to push Daddy away. I wanted to die. I hurt so badly. I was ugly inside and out. I hated me for hurting Daddy, for losing you. I resented myself for everything. It was bad, really really bad. I thought of ways to die. I thought of ways to die so it wasn't messy. I thought of people I wanted to thank for supporting me in life. I thought of how my family and friends would feel afterwards. I thought of how Daddy would feel, how his life would be. Would he be OK and go on to be a wonderful fireman, would he marry again and finally start a family with someone who could actually have kids the normal way? through intimacy and love? or would my death destroy him? would it be me ruining him yet again? I couldn't bear those thoughts. Mostly I was sad for Harvey. I was sad to leave him. I was afraid he would forget me, or even worse remember me and know I had chosen to leave him. My thoughts were scary, ugly and dark. I laid in my bed sobbing, begging, yelling, hating a GOD who had broken my heart and shattered my life into a million pieces.  To my surprise Daddy didn't leave. He held me in our bed and when I pushed his arms away he laid in bed with me, his heart filled with love and concern for me. He has never seen me in such a state. No one has. I have never even in my darkest times been that low. I have never felt so alone. So afraid, so full of emptyness. He stayed and talked to me. He listened and he tried to understand. He will never know how I feel inside, no one can ever know the pain that soars through my body. The energy it takes to suck air into my lungs and even more so to force it out. The pain eases ever so slightly when I inhale. I try to hold my breath and not move. To feel the tightness within my chest and the warmth creep up to my face before I feel like I can't take it any longer. That is my moment of peace. When everything doesn't throb with such intensity.

Needless to say after all of this I couldn't sleep. I took three lunesta, my prescribed dose is one pill as needed. I rubbed lavender on my feet and hoped I would fall asleep. No such luck. Of course not. Even with extra medication my thoughts tormented my brain. Finally when I did find sleep it was terrifying. I had nightmare after nightmare. In my dreams we were back in Yosemite. We had just spread your ashes in May lake and Harvey was playing in the dirt. He was running around and having a blast. He was smelling the rocks and looking around. When we got back to camp we noticed he was acting funny. Then he collapsed to the ground. He looked at us with hurting eyes. We were so worried. Out in the woods away from cell coverage and veterinarian. We thought perhaps he had been poisoned. Maybe bitten by a dangerous spider or snake. We couldn't bare watching him suffer before our eyes so Daddy took a large rock and slammed it into his head. I remember blood everywhere. I remember crying and feeling so sad. The next dream placed me in a classroom with mean kids. I didn't know anyone. I recall sitting in class completely depressed at your loss and Harvey's death. I was empty. Next I am at work, giving the doctors report on a little girl. I couldn't recall the name of her medication which was not normal for me. I always remember everything about my patients and am a wonderful advocate. I walked to her room and she was small. Small like you both were, but she talked to me. Her hands were so tiny. Her fingers were as small as yours. She had a bandaid on her finger and I remember thinking about how small it was and how tiny the bandaid was. It shocked me that she was so small, yet intelligent and talking. I walked out of her room and felt like I was dreaming. I tried calling Daddy to see if Harvey was really dead. If you were really dead. I felt like it was a dream. I called and called but he didn't answer. I walked into the bathroom to go pee and then I woke up with a full bladder. I went pee and sat there on the toilet in complete distress. What a freaky dream. I washed my hands and ran downstairs to check on Harvey. I was relieved to see him on the couch sleeping. I sat beside him and pet him for a long time. Then we went to a nice walk. I didn't rush one second of his walk. I allowed him to sniff everything. I tried to absorb the sun and tried to let him enjoy his walk. He counts on me to walk him, and he deserved the walk. 

Later I told Daddy about the dream and how it was really disturbing to me. We talked about it and also about how we both had a lot of mixed emotions about your passing. We decided that the dream had a lot of similarities to your situation. We didn't want to watch you suffer. Sure we could have kept you on life support having machines keep you alive. Yes we could have allowed your brains to bleed, your organs to shut down, your bodies to go septic. We could have allowed you to be in pain, but as your parents we wanted to save you from all of that. As your parents we thought we were making the best decision for you. It was a hard choice for us, one we hated making so much. We so badly wanted to be selfish and keep you here with us. We would have taken as much time as we could have gotten with you. We would have cared for you forever. We would have been able to manage with one of us staying home full time to care for you. We would have provided the best medical care and therapy possible for you both, but in the end we asked ourselves how you would feel being kept here for us. How selfish would we have been knowing you would be suffering for our benefit of having children. How could we watch you struggle every second just to have you. We couldn't. That was the decision we made and we are stuck with those consequences for the rest of our lives. As long as our brains run, so will the memories of what we did and what we chose. 

We are getting help. I didn't write this blog because I want or need people to tell me what I should be doing or need to do. I know you are all worried about me and I am sorry for making you worry. It was not my intention to cause you pain at all. I am trying hard. I am not giving up on myself or life. I am just being honest with myself and with all of you. This is huge for me. Never before in life would I ever admit to such feelings, such desperation, such thoughts, but here I am being honest. If not to help myself then to one day perhaps help someone in a similar situation know that these feelings are real and they happen. They can happen to anyone at anytime. Life is never gaurenteed. What we have today may vanish tomorrow. Hold dear to those around you and love with your whole heart, because we have no power or control over the destiny of this world. Once we lose someone they are gone and we are forever stuck with the words and actions we took. What if we lived in a world where we all lived our day like it was the last. Where each interaction we made with someone was a meaningful one. Where we tried to allow love for one another overpower the anger and frustrations we have. What would happen if we appreciated what we have before our eyes. Just think....

I love you