Pictures

I was looking through my collection of pictures tonight, trying to find one to post on facebook in honor of Father's Day.

I chose this one:

I love how our hands, Jason's and mine, completely encircle her.  Jason loved her so much - his Ella Belle.

I may post this one tomorrow, in honor of my dad:

He arrived at the hospital at about 2am.  I just love my dad.  :-)

And when I saw this one again tonight... I just have no words.  Only memories.  And love.  I was holding her for the first time.

A metal baseball bat.  A really heavy metal baseball bat.

And about 1000 old computers.

I think I might feel better after that.

Metaphors

The mess is a bit more under control, thanks to a friend who came over a couple days ago to give me some direction.

Before she left, she looked at my living room, smiling, and told me that it looked really good.  I think she may have said that I'd gotten a lot done.

And all I wanted to do was cry.  I did cry.  I didn't want a clean living room.

(Crazy.)

I re-covered a chair last fall (or maybe in the winter?  Can't remember.)  I finished it late one night, and I cried as I finished it.  I sobbed when I was completely finished.  And before I could go to bed, I felt compelled to tear apart *another* chair.  So I took all the fabric off of another chair, and I felt better.

I can't sit in the re-covered chair.  I don't know why.

My friend (the one who dove into the mess in my house with me) has described these types of things as a 'metaphor' for something - something that's going on underneath all of the frantic bedroom painting, furniture rearranging, 'crap' purging, chair re-covering, and yard destruction.  I think she's right, but I don't really know what the metaphor is exactly.

I have recently started talking with a grief counselor.  He offered some perspective on the glass-shattering fixation I have, talking about its symbolism.  Although it was helpful to start thinking about why I want to throw things and break things and shatter things, and then clean them up, it was really painful.  It hurt a lot.  We didn't talk about it long.

But it does sorta help to think about what it all 'means'.  Because there is more to it than just throwing and destroying things.

Recent Headlines from the Garden

The Garden.  AKA:  the cemetery.

We've been calling it 'the garden' because it's just easier to say to our little ones that we're going to the 'garden' instead of the 'cemetery'.  And I like how Levi asks me sometimes if we're going to Elliana's garden, or if we're going to Hobby Lobby to pick out new flowers for the garden.  :-)

The weeping willow flowers are gone.  They've been replaced with a much smaller arrangement of bright spring-colored flowers.  I miss the cascade.

The newest 'neighbor' has her stone.  A little girl named Gracie.

I didn't realize that people use cemeteries for exercise and dog-walking purposes.  It caught me off guard for a while.  I think I'm used to it now.  And I don't find myself the least bit self-conscious when those dog-walking exercise people walk past me as I'm making new flower arrangements for Elliana's vase.  I don't care if I look crazy.

And that's so not me.  I have always cared if I look crazy.

Not anymore.

And... I hesitate to share this headline publicly.  But I will.

*Big Sigh*

I don't *think* it's printed anywhere in our cemetery guidelines that peeing on the grounds is prohibited.

Because for a brief moment, which felt like an eternity, I was certain that we were about to be fined.  Or imprisoned.

I was brushing off Elliana's stone while Seth and Levi 'played' around me.  And I remember hearing Seth say, 'Mom, I need to go potty.'

I had my back to him, so I just said, 'OK, Seth.  I'll take you in just a - '

I turned around, and I was looking at my 2-year-old's BARE BUTTOCKS.

(Whispering as loudly as I could, hoping that no one else had seen him or could hear me)  'Oh NO, Seth!  Stop!  You can't do that here!  Pull your pants back up!'

But it was too late.  The stream of pee had already started, and MY SON WAS PEEING IN BABY LAND.

At least he's only 2.

And at least he was peeing in the hedges.

But OH.MY.WORD.  Talk about complete and utter humiliation.  I was absolutely mortified.

I wonder, though - do you think Elliana and Jesus were laughing?  :-)

Can't Think of a Title, So We'll Just Call This 'Today's Blog Post'

The mess has gotten larger.  The project, bigger.  But the energy is gone.  As of about 4:45pm today, my energy (or perhaps it was more of a 72-hour adrenaline rush associated with my intense desire to completely destroy something) is gone.

I'm noticing a bit of a 'pattern'.  Down time = the deep ache.

As long as I keep going, as long as there's somewhere I have to be, someone I have to converse with, something I have to do, someone I have to tend to, the deep ache subsides.  But the moment any of those things stop, the deep ache returns.

So... do I just keep myself busy ALL THE TIME and never, ever think about Elliana or feel the deep ache again?

And if I don't keep myself busy all the time, what do I do when the deep ache returns?  It's not like I can push 'pause' on the kids and go play the piano or go to the cemetery.  Or go throw beer bottles.

I've recently learned that there's more than one kind of grief.  There's 'grief', and there's 'complicated grief'.

And I think that's all I want to say about that today.

I guess the good news is this:  after I've completely destroyed something (like the overgrown bushes and great big mound of weed-covered dirt in my back yard), it usually results in a completed project.  I tear something up, I clean it up (with Jason's help), and usually whatever I tore up looks better than it did before I destroyed it.

So eventually, when I'm done with my current project, I'll have 4 freshly painted/decorated, completely rearranged, and extremely organized bedrooms.

Let's hope the energy (or adrenaline) returns quickly.

Wish me luck.

Another Simple Comment

I taught some piano lessons today.  Which meant that a few students had to actually walk into the disaster area that is currently my living room because of my attempt to 'clean out' my bedroom.

The last student of the day had to sit on the couch and wait for a minute or two while I finished up the previous lesson.  When she sat down next to me at the piano bench, I apologized for the mess she'd had to look at.

This sweet girl, just 8 years old, without any hesitation at all, said, 'Oh, it's ok.  I was actually just looking at that picture of Elliana.  That's a picture of her, right?  She has so much pretty hair.'

It brought tears to my eyes.  But it was ok.

It helps for people to say her name.  To look at her picture.  To tell me they're looking at her picture.  It helps.

Sweet little LL, thank you.  When most of my thoughts were consumed with remembering the last few hours I had with her, your simple comment *helped me*.  Just by looking at her picture and saying her name.

You made my day.  :-)

A Simple Comment

One simple comment sparked a flame in my head today.

Today.  May 5.

I thought maybe today would be easier than the 5th day of past months.  But the heaviness - the deep ache - settled over me this morning.  Nothing in particular brought it on.  It just came.  It does that.

One simple comment today.

I told someone I was having a hard day today.

Her kind, simple comment:  'Everyone has days like that.'

This is what I've been telling myself today so that I won't throw tea glasses, vases, and beer bottles:

She was trying to be understanding.  Sympathetic.  She was trying to help me believe that I'm normal.  That I'm not crazy.  She was being kind.

But this was my instinctive response:

No.  Everyone doesn't have days like this.  My day has been hard because my daughter would have been 8 months old today.  My day has been hard because I let a song lyric make my sorrow feel cheesy and easily 'fixed'.  It's been hard because my little blond baby girl isn't riding in the van with me and her 4 older siblings.  It's been hard because I'm remembering the scary hours of that day, 8 months ago, that led to the decision to deliver her.  And it's been hard because delivering her led to the decision to stop the efforts to revive her, and that meant saying goodbye to her.  No.  Everyone doesn't have days like this.

I.  Miss.  Her.

I felt like tearing something apart tonight.  It was too dark and too late to break out the chainsaw, go out back, and start tearing down some trees.  And I think I should probably take a friend with me if I actually go throw a bunch of glass bottles at the rear of a vacant building I scoped out today for glass-shattering.  (Yes, I really did that.)  So instead, I took everything that either didn't belong in my bedroom or I didn't want in my bedroom and threw it out in the living room.  Now there's a huge mess in my living room.  A HUGE mess.

I wish grief were a little cleaner.  And easier.  And politer.