The house was full of its usual evening noises. Homework being finished, the TV providing a few minutes of brainless entertainment, evening snacks, and the typical mid-week chaos of a busy household. I could hear it all in the background but my ears felt like they were being pierced with heavy silence. I paced through the house trying to distract myself with dishes, counter tops that needed wiped down, the ever present laundry, turning lights off....anything to quiet the panic that was rising in me.
The day had been especially difficult and now that night was settling around me I could feel myself sinking into that familiar wave of sadness. But this wave was bigger, darker, more powerful, and terrifying. My pacing was not working and I suddenly found myself in the bathroom. I quietly clicked the lock into place to ensure no one would walk into my black pain. I needed some privacy...I needed a few minutes to myself to breathe and get my emotions under control. I leaned my head against the wall and the tears that had been silently accumulating behind my eyes all evening came crashing over me.
My body slowly slid down the wall and I found myself curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor. The pain of missing Keyan was more than I could take. At that moment it was a physical pain like I had never felt. It was rising up from my depths like hot lava. The memories of my girl were burning my heart in my chest. All of her suffering, all of her joy, all of my days fighting for her, all of the days I have lived without her physically here....it all weighed me down with an intensity I had not experienced until that moment. My jaw clenched over and over with panic. I silently screamed while wrapping my arms around my waist trying to stop the ache.
I could hear my family beyond those four walls but I had never felt more alone. As my forehead felt the coolness of the laminate floor, my thoughts turned quickly to "I can't keep doing this! This pain is going to kill me. I need it to stop. How can I stop this despair? Please, someone, help! I can't keep living this way." Inside my head, I begged, "Someone put me out of my misery!" For the first time in my life, I looked for a way out. I thought of the alcohol cupboard in the kitchen and wondered if I could drink myself to a point that I could forget my despair? Was there any sort of medical drugs left in this house that I could swallow by the handful to end this nightmare? If I made just a tiny cut somewhere on my body would the pain flow out of me instead of continuously swirling around inside of me? My tears puddled on the floor as I contemplated finding a way to be reunited with my daughter.
I turned on my back, looking up at the ceiling and begged God, "For all that is good on this earth and in heaven, please do not make me keep doing this!" I closed my eyes and envisioned being released from my anguish. My throat was raw from catching my sobs and my tears now stung as they continued to fall. I laid there contemplating my options and sorting out my thoughts. I realized that it isn't just the torment of being away from Keyan's body and personality or the agony of missing her little voice in all the craziness of our family. It is also me...it is my uncertainty of who I am.
It is feeling like a foreigner in every aspect of my own life. It is the brutal reminders of what was and the ever present questions of what will be. Keyan's death has turned my very existence into question. I am having to learn how to live without her which means figuring out how to live all over again.
In this past month I realized how much I normalized the life we led with her for 13 years....and am also now realizing that there was nothing "normal" about it. It was our normal, and we did the very best to embrace it and live it fully but on this side of Keyan's death that means learning so much. I have to learn how to be home alone in my house. I have to learn how to be a sports mom... and how to handle the teams loosing or my kids not playing. I may have been physically present at as many sporting events that I could get to before but my mind was always busy with Keyan and if she was ok. I have to learn how to be home entire evenings with my family without the distractions of a nurse coming in between 7-8pm. Is it ok if we are all doing our own thing? Should we be doing more as a family? Maybe we need to play a game or go somewhere? These are the thoughts that consume my brain now. Without having to be a constant caregiver, I am left to figure out my purpose. Figure out how to finish a fight with my husband instead of avoiding it due to Keyan needing something. I have to figure out how to walk down the street without pushing a wheelchair...it feels strange and empty. I have to make something of this mess! It was during the lowest of any moment yet that I settled into the fact that right now, it might just all be a mess and that is ok.
My thoughts quieted a bit and I could hear my kids doing life on the other side of the walls. I sensed the truth that I was not alone in this. Paul was out there living some of these same realities. He is the only other person who was with me when Keyan took both her first and last breaths. Moms and Dads all over this world have to learn to live through the pain of having a child die. I know several of them in fact. Learning to keep on keeping on is not an end result or a destination but rather a choice, a journey, a quest.
Listening to the life happening around me, I knew I couldn't be the cause of additional hurt for my family. I knew that I could find the strength to get off the floor and give goodnight kisses and hugs to the people who need me most right now. My purpose is still found in my family....even if it looks and feels so different. A little while later I crawled into bed exhausted and weary but thankful for the fortitude God has given me to face this mess and embrace it.
The craziest thing to me is that this event that I describe here was just a few weeks ago. The time between month 15 and 16 has felt like an eternity. I expected to feel this depth of pain during the first year, but I never imagined it would come after that. The shock is wearing off and we are all realizing that this is real and this is really our life now....the good and the bad, the beauty and the horrific. I am fortunate to have people who support me, an amazing therapist that helped me find my way even further away from that very dark place the next day and evaluated my overall well being. I am fortunate to have the where-with-all to know that suicidal thoughts can come in this terrain but that I have a bigger picture that just this despair. I know not everyone makes it off the floor.
The grief is absolutely brutal right now. It doesn't let me up for air very often but I am eternally grateful that I have places to turn and people to cry out to. Sixteen months since I felt the warmth of Keyan's body fade. Sixteen months of tears and healing. Sixteen months of navigating the new. Sixteen months of searching for the hope, and sixteen months of feeling the mess.
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