Being strong….this is something I wrestle with every day. People tell me all the time, “You are so
strong!” I cannot accept that. Wading through grief is not strength, it is
painful! Each day is like walking
through thorns and feeling them cut deeper the more you try to escape them.
In reality what you see as my strength is not. It is a brave face, it is a determined Mama,
it is crying alone, it is screaming at the top of my lungs when no one is
around and it is wanting so desperately to not to have to be “strong”!
Being handed this life sentence without my oldest daughter
seems so wrong, then I look to my youngest daughter and I feel the pain she has
inside of her and it cuts my heart even deeper.
This is not something I can stop or change for her, not something I can
shelter her from. Her life sentence
without her sister is greater than I can imagine. Greater than anything she should ever have to
know.
I want to see my girl living her life and her sister not
afraid to live hers.
I know when we have children, we aren’t handed a checklist,
and I love a good checklist. Even more
unreal is when we lose our child there is no checklist for that either. How am I supposed to keep going, how can I
help my youngest child though this uncharted territory when I have no damn clue
where we even are anymore? How can I
encourage her to fight, when I am not sure I can!
I don’t want to die, but I sure as hell want to be with my
girl….BOTH of my girls. How can I keep
one foot in this world and one foot in another?
This limbo is something I will never wrap my head around, yet I keep
going in this world.
I bask in all the glory my youngest daughter’s achievements
with her and encourage her to be proud of what she is doing, she deserves
everything she has worked so hard for and I am proud of her! She deserves to see that she is the kindest
soul with the most amazing heart. To
hear her say she is scared to continue her life without her big sissy showing
her the way is heartbreaking and true. The
truth in what she is feeling is not wrong.
I am always honored when she can express this to me.
The pain my youngest daughter wades though is like those
thorns, but I know they cut her even deeper.
The day the feelings to be with her sister outweighed her desire to live
her own I was there, understanding where she was at. Screaming
and begging her to stay here.
The pain she was in built up higher than any mountain you
can see or imagine. I understood how she
got to that place, but she nor I were ready for her to take her foot out of
this world. She fought like hell to stay
in this world, even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She doesn’t need to be strong; she needs to
know it’s OK
to be whatever she is.
So, as I stand in this world and people call me strong…I
want to laugh in their face. I am far
from strong, I am a grieving mother, fighting to keep myself and my youngest
daughter in this world. This doesn’t
make us strong, this makes us the keeper of the thorns…..taking moments we can
to smell the roses.
