Today, I picked up the worn, beaten down journal that documents my first year after Hannah, Ryan and Abby died. As I held the book in my hands, I thought about all the pain it contains. I opened it and as I read, the words on the pages became familiar to me but there is so much that I have forgotten.
The uncertainty...
1/25/04
...This is so hard...Today, R was holding me and he told me that he wants only for me to be happy again. Then he asked me if being with just him was enough to make me happy. What a difficult question to answer...to have him as my life partner, to share the joys and sorrows of life together, yes, that makes me happy. I can't imagine my life without him and the thought of losing him terrifies me now. But is it enough for me to be "just he and I"? I no longer feel complete being just he and I. The desire to have more children, children we can raise together, is so strong in me now that I don't know if being just he and I will be enough to make me completely happy anymore. Is it enough to make him completely happy? I don't know the answer to that, either....
The longing...
1/29/04
...I tucked Chloe [my niece] into bed tonight and when I held her little body next to mine, my eyes filled with tears...I could hardly let go of her-to feel a child snuggled into my arms--to know the love of that child--for one brief moment, I let myself imagine that she was my own child and it broke my heart to let go of her and feel that emptiness fill up inside me again. Will I ever hold my own child close to my breast and kiss him/her good-night? If I am so fortunate, will the love that child brings to my life alleviate this emptiness that I feel?...
The physical aspects...
3/3/04
Could there be a crueler pain then the death of ones children? I do not think so...the grief has infiltrated every fiber of my being. I feel so out of sorts and so raw again. [I had learned recently that my sister-in-law was pregnant] My heart is so empty and my arms ache for my babies. I want to be excited for Ed and Kate but my own babies deaths are overshadowing my abilities to share in their joy. I feel angry and hurt and it's so confusing. I am so tired. So very tired. I want to lay my head down and sleep for days. My eyes feel so heavy and my head has a dull ache to it, always. The skin on my face is tight from my tears and my eyes are so red and swollen from crying. I can not get it together right now to face even the smallest tasks. I am just so tired...so very tired...
It's hard to explain what I felt, reading these entries. It's almost as if I were reading a book that I couldn't put down. But in some ways I was detached from the grief, as if it wasn't my own. As if it was just a story that I was reading that moved me deeply.
As the 5 year anniversary approaches, I have found myself thinking more and more about those early days of my grief and all they encompassed. I don't want to re-live it, I don't want to go back and be in the dark depths of those early days again, but I have this peculiar need to remember it. All of it.
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I do that sometimes- go back and re-read my early journal entries. Sometimes it takes me back and I get teary, and yet, most of the time, I can read it in the semi-detached way that you described. I think we can read those words as though they were written by someone else because they almost were. I'm not that woman anymore. That raw, overwhelming grief is not mine any longer. It's a memory. But, like you, it is a memory I don't want to forget.
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