Drained

I am drained. I feel like I barely have the energy to breath.

Tuesday was harder than I was prepared for. Some of Jessika's friends joined us to lay flowers. We told stories of a young Jessika. We laughed. We cried. I came home and went to bed.

I slept all day Wednesday, getting up for meals, potty breaks and a quick check of FB. Thursday was the same. I am trying to wake up now, the little ones will be here in four hours. I would call off, but he would hold it against me and make it difficult to get kids in the future. I do see take out pizza for supper.

Bill has never believed in a "date". Meaning no birthday, anniversary, valentine, etc. presents. He does his own thing on his schedule. Which is ok. But he is having trouble understanding why I am hurting so much. It was just a day to him. Not to me. It brought back up all the hurt, pain, sadness, feelings for me. It will take a while for me to work thru these emotions again. Not that they will ever go away, but I will be able to tuck them away again It will be a bit though.

It has been rainy all week. Fits my mood. We get zero rain all summer, lost all the crops. We need to be planting wheat now for harvest next summer. We can't. It is to wet.

Hug your kids, tell your loved ones how you feel. Don't wait another day, hour or minute. You never know.

Blessings

No Words

There are no words to describe how I am feeling. My heart feels like it has been ripped from my body, tears flow freely, I feel like the pain is going to suffocate me.

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of losing my daughter. I don't want it to be. I can't sleep. I don't want to wake up and this last year has been real. If I stay awake I can pretend everything is normal. That Jessika will soon be here.

My brain knows this isn't true, but my heart wants to believe it.

Bill is knocking off tomorrow to stay with me. The older kids will be out after school. We will then take flowers to Jessika. Pink roses. We always sent her pink roses. When she was born, Bill brought me 3 pink roses. Pink for a girl, 3 because she was born on the 3rd day of the 3rd month, roses because it is my favorite flower. Tomorrow we will take her pink roses.

Bill is going to try and go. He has never been there. He can't even drive down the road where she is, he take a route a couple miles out of the way when he needs to pass there. His tattoo is his first acknowledgement that she is gone. I hope he can go. I need him too.

I want to hang pictures of Jess, to talk about her. He has not been ready for that. I hate it. To look at my house there are no signs she was ever here. I need those pictures. I need those memories. I need to make sure the kids never forget her, that they  know her.

Please, please in her memory, hug your loved ones, tell them what they mean to you. I pray you never have to feel this pain.

I had a panic attack today. My first in a while. unless you count when we fly. I think it may have been brought on by the time. In two weeks it will be one year since our lives were forever changed, the first anniversary of when we lost Jessika.

I knew this was going to be hard. I have tried to prepare myself.

Bill is just beginning to heal, he has blocked it as long as he could. He said that getting the tattoo was helpful. He tied the pain of loosing Jess to the pain from the tattoo. They became one and the same. As the tattoo began to heal so has his heart. What is so cool, as even though we just shared this with each other, is that I was doing the same thing.

We still miss her dearly. That pain, that piece of our hearts that disappeared, has forever changed, branded us. Nothing can ever make that better. As we continue to heal, the happy, silly, quiet moments with Jessika begin to dominate. The stronger they become, the more we will be able to celebrate her life.

I wanted to keep my mind as busy as possible this month. I started putting a cookbook together of all of Jessika's favorite recipes and foods. It was to have been a gift for family members for Christmas. Then Bill decided, we should sell the books and use the money for a memorial of some kind for Jess at the local ball diamonds. With 5 kids, there has been and will continue to be a lot of time spent there, and I think it is something Jess would approve of.

I have sorted, gathered, condensed, typed 275 plus recipes that Jess either made or liked to eat. I have a little more to proof, then will send it to the printers. I hope we can profit enough to do a nice memorial.

Once I get this sent off, I will then start sorting pictures to make "memory books" for the kids for Christmas.

That should take a while and keep my mind busy for a while.

Blessings

Fake It Till You Make It

This is one phrase I am sick of. Yes, in some circumstances it is useful, beneficial even. But, I am sick of "faking it". I am tired of going through life pretending everything is peachy keen, while inside I am dying inside.

I am not saying I am not happy, with the exception of Jessika, I am fairly happy. I can have fun, Bill and I just had our best vacation ever. Life, however, is not perfect. We have had one catastrophe after another, the worst, of course, being losing Jessika.

I am scarred. I am not the person I was 2 years ago. I hurt. I can have a good time, but still carry the pain of losing Jess. I can smile through my tears. I will, however, no longer hide those tears. If they are there, I am going to let them flow. This is me, who I am, a grieving parent. The pain will never go away, I will have it every minute of every day of my life. I can still have a life, I can still have fun, form new memories, enjoy family. I will never again "fake it". I will be my true self, the real me, whomever she may be at that moment in time.

Bill and I wanted to do something personal to honor Jessika. While on vacation we got tattoos. Ones we had thought long and hard about. They mean something to us. Bill's is pretty self-explanatory. Mine has hidden meanings. The Halloween before Jess got sick we all went out, in costume, to party the night away. Jessika dressed as the Amy Brown fairy, The Brat. This fairy wore a red strapless dress with over the elbow red and white striped gloves and matching hose. I chose to remember this fun night. When Jess was young, she compared us to the sun and moon. I had golden hair and wore gold jewelry, she had white blond hair and wore silver jewelry. I chose to add a moon for her. A crescent moon open to the left signifies loss or remembrance, so it is open to the left. I added 5 stars for her kids, 4 blue (boys) and one pink. Eventually I will have the sun on my left shoulder redone to go better with the moon.

I am prepared for this next month to be especially difficult as we approach the first anniversary of her loss. In some ways, it feels like it happened yesterday, in others it feels like the pain has been there for years.

Blessings