Today we started out the day with a yummy brunch that Paul made for us after all sleeping in. After that, I decided to tackle organizing one of the kitchen cabinets that has been driving me crazy. It is the first thing I have organized since the Stay home, Stay safe period began. Most of my friends have organized every nook and cranny of their home but I have not. The cupboard went alright so I ventured out to the garage to tackle some shelves out there while Paul was doing some wood working.
I started by trying to just sort out the stuff that needed to be thrown away. And then, everywhere I turned, I came across Keyan’s stuff. First it was her tennis racket, and then it was her Dora umbrella, and then wheelchair parts, and then her voice amplification system, her bowling bag, and than her sand toys. I stopped, breathed really deep, forced my body to keep moving rather than collapse, and felt like I was drowning. Friends, if you know someone who has had a child die and their house is a mess, or their garage, or you wonder why they can’t pull it together almost three years later to just clean out the cubbies, the closets, the yard, or the basement or the barn, or anything else, please hear me.
We try. We try and try and then we keep coming across our dead daughters things. It feels so shitty. We work to remind ourselves of how grateful we are for the memories and for the time we had but in those moments our brain can not stay in logic mode. It suddenly feels like that is all you can see... her things that she should be using. The memories come flooding over you and overtake any progress you are making. You get angry and take it out on anyone in range. It’s terrible.
You battle through and hang up the tennis racket, blow some bubbles and hear her laughter, put the umbrella by the rest of the rain gear, save a few sand toys that you may never part with and throw some away, and you keep pushing through. Then, your husband goes to put something in the trash and comes to you with tears in his eyes and says, “I don’t know how you did it. I didn’t know you were dealing with that. Are you ok?” You yell. Not at him but at the situation. You cry because you feel both pain and frustration that things are this way. You ask if what you threw away was ok with him and say you can pull any of it back out. You feel like a hoarder. You swear in the direction of the neighbors who are laughing together as a family (not loud enough for them to hear.) You let the tears come and your body doubles over to find its breath. And you fully understand for the first time why your house is not clean and organized.
The day continued on the rollercoaster that was today. We live though it and thrived even with all of the hard because this is our life. It may not be pretty and organized but it is the one we've been given, so one moment at a time!
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