More pictures of you...

 It's been three years since I wrote in this blog.  I write to Taryn in a journal I've kept since she died and it's really helped me to feel like she is with me all the time.  I used to talk to her every day and share my life with her and I still do.  I can even hear what she would have said to me.  Since 2020 and all the COVID madness it's been a rough couple of years.  I've watched my three beautiful grandsons grow up and start talking.  We've had a lot of holidays and birthdays.  I've decided I will never stop missing her and I just accept the fact that she is part of my thoughts and a daily reminder of how short this life is.  Life is precious.  We only get the one life.  I think she did a great job of living hers.  She packed so much into her 28 years.  I wish I could have seen what she would have done with more years.  I think the world got cheated.  I found some pictures we took of her a few years before she died.  It's always fun to find those.  To see her face and smiles.  She's holding PJ when he was born.  Pat and Heather's second son.  They have four now.  Tommy, PJ, Finn and Sully.  July 13th, 2015, that's when these were taken...

Fall 2020

 

It it were possible you'd be here already.  This year has been a struggle in so many ways.  I thought maybe the first few years of this kind of loss would be the worst ones but I was wrong.  This is year three and it seems like the unraveling happened more this year than the first two.  Time is supposed to heal but I've found that time makes things fuzzy and out of focus but it doesn't heal really.  The further something gets into the past the harder it is to hold onto.  My memories of my daughter are still there in my mind vignetted in soft frames of color.  I dream of her.  I think of her every day and keep a Pinterest page for her.   It's full of the sea, turtles, funny quotes I know she'd love, shoes she would have worn, the life she would have lived if she'd had the chance to finish it.

After years of crying you settle into acceptance but never quite give in.  It's still something you were forced to do and that resonates with your spirit as unfair and unnatural.  Big deep sighs give way to busy days of details.  You wear that badge of pain beneath everything around you and only a few people know it's there.  A brand of sorts.  A tattoo that is invisible to everyone but a close few who are in your inner world.  It's not possible to show it to everyone because that kind of sadness is hurtful and the last thing I want to do is harm people with my loss.  I choose to love all the things I know about what she loves.  Why she loved them  so much and how all these things together make up who she was here on this earth.

I don't want to forget anything that was important to her.  These baby turtles who fight so hard to survive and get to the water after they hatch.  I think she loved them so much because of what they represent.  That struggle in life that begins so innocently and how hard it is to make it to safety sometimes.  There are all kinds of ways that life is dangerous and having the courage to forge forward in the face of so much against you is the ultimate path of success.  She did that.  Through all her problems she fought for success.  Her tumors weren't going to prevent her from having a wonderful life.  They didn't.  Ironic thing is they weren't the problem that ended her life.  

It was pre eclampsia that took her from us.  She loved getting her nails done and since she loved the ocean I know she would have done this!  It's so pretty.  she had such an amazing sense of style.  Anything she wore looked great on her and she could pull off just about anything.  Many people told her she should model but she was painfully shy and actually felt sick to her stomach when someone would try and take her picture.

She wasn't the kind of girl who could flaunt herself she was private but not quiet.  She was very opinionated but not in a bad way.  Taryn would share what she thought with the people who meant something to her she just wasn't someone who was going to stand up in front of people and punch a fist into the air.  LOL  She made small changes to the people she loved and I still feel the effects of that on a daily basis.  She loved the ocean.  Not just the look of it but protecting it.  

Taryn loved owls and coffee.  She was born with huge blue eyes.  We loved her eyes and how expressive they were when she was so little.  I think owls with their big wise beautiful eyes personify her perfectly.  They can be comical or serious.  She couldn't get started in the morning without coffee.  The good stuff not the instant stuff.  She became a Keurig girl.  It was probably the most important tool in her kitchen.  That and her blender. 

Taryn loved shoes.  She had size 11 narrow feet, very big like Cindy Crawford's feet.  It was hard to find her pretty shoes because they just didn't come in her size.  This was from the time time she was little too.  She was into womens shoes when she was a little girl and the sparkly ones didn't come in women's sizes.  We had to get creative and really dig for the pretty ones.  She had some of the most beautiful shoes I'd ever seen.  Whenever we found them in an 11 I would always get them for her.  Even her feet were pretty.  

Taryn was and will always be one of a kind.  I add to her Pinterest almost every day when I see things I know she would love.  It makes me smile and feel close to her still.  I don't know what life has in store for me or how long I'll live without her.  I've thought about that a lot this year.  Maybe everyone does when they get older.  Missing someone so important to your soul never stops feeling empty.  It makes you look up at that big beautiful sky full of fluffy clouds and wonder if they can see it too.  How much of your life is visible to the departed souls you love?  I have a great understanding of the plan for life and I know she's safe in heaven with God waiting for all of us to join her.  We can continue being a family at that point and I so look forward to it.  I miss her.  Every single minute of every day.  That will never end until I can be with her again.

 

July 13th 2015 Pictures of You.

 

Heather found these pictures of you a few months ago.  She said they just appeared in a folder on her desktop and she didn't know where they came from.  This was the year PJ was born and I was taking these pictures and don't even remember this very well.  I love the look on your face.  I look at the date sometimes and think back to the years when you were with us and it just keeps getting farther and farther away from me.  No matter how you reach for it, it's still being sent into the past at lightning speed.  There was so much happiness then.  So much we took for granted too.  I just thought I'd have you all for the rest of my life.  That's what we all think isn't it?  Until it's not what happens.  We had made all these plans for the birth of Kayan and how our little family would change with him in it.  It's been five months since I wrote a post.  This has been one of the most difficult years of my life.  It's odd that the year you died wasn't the worst year I've lived.  This one is.  Three years later and I'm feeling the tsunami slam into me harder than I ever did the year you died.

Not many people understand that.  They think all the pain comes in the beginning but it doesn't.  At first you don't feel it much, you're in too much shock.  Life is different in ways you can't explain and you are on autopilot but as soon as that switch flips you're in control of that plane and have the power to either sink or swim.  Have I been gliding all this time until now?  Something happened in February of this year.  Something significant.  I felt a change in me that is hard to explain.  Maybe that's why I haven't written a blog in so long.  I tried to go see a therapist about the loss I was feeling and it was kind of a disaster.  Unless you get the RIGHT therapist you just sit there feeling helpless.  This girl was a GIRL and I didn't feel she had enough life experience to understand what I was going through much less help me through it.  I know that might be unfair but she didn't offer me much in the way of coping mechanisms but what did help were the self help books I was listening to on Audible.  That's when I realized that help comes in all forms.  Audible books, movies with profound messages, pictures that move me and give me hope and just spending time with my grandsons.  It's not a one stop solution it's a bunch of things.

The Power of Now teaches that time is a concept we use to measure our lives but it's not something that even exists in other dimensions.  So I measure out my loss, my grief and my memories on this timeline that you don't even have anymore.  It's not depression I feel it's the insanity of this quietness.  Going from such a busy needful life to one of quiet solitude is deafening.  It's not something I ever wanted to feel but here it is anyway.  This life comes with these things.  Like Mick Jagger says, "You can't always get what you want, you can try sometimes but you just might find you get what you need."  What do I need?  This is the thing I've been digging into my soul to discover.  What do I NEED besides a daughter that is no longer with me on this earth?   

Courage

I know what you would think of all that is going on in the world right now.  You'd get all dolled up and go to the Mall and SHOP.  You'd be mad that any stores were closed and hug people on purpose.  It makes me laugh to even think about it but you would!  You'd be mad that your tattoo artist is not able to do his job and you'd be pissed that people were unable to go out to eat. 

I remember when I bought a lot of toilet paper years ago because it was on sale and you teased me saying, "Mom's storing up for the apocalypse better watch out!"  When all this shortage of TP happened that's the first thing I thought of. 

You would worry about all the people who are out of work and worry that they'll have enough to eat or be able to pay their bills.  That's just who you were.  You were the most unselfish person I knew.  You always helped people.  Did your best to understand and champion the underdog.

I haven't written in a while.  There's been so much going on in and outside of me.  I had a dream about you a few days ago and it was incredible.  One of THOSE dreams.  The ones where you can't discern between reality and the dream itself.  I hugged you so tight, I could feel your boney shoulders and smell your hair and I kept saying how much I missed you and you told me not to cry and that you would never ever leave me.  That whole day I felt happy inside and smiled so big.  I know that if it were me who had to leave you behind I would go to you in any way I could and tell you whatever you needed to hear to comfort you. 

There are moments you take mental pictures of things.  Those are the moments that fill your brain and heart.  I can see you in that dream.  Smiling and laughing and being you.  I'm so grateful for that.  So grateful for my memories and the moments in my dreams so I can add to my comfort arcenal.   Thank you sweetheart for helping your mama and being my baby girl forever. 

Grief

I haven't written in here for over a month.  For some reason the anniversary of your death really threw me for a loop this year.  It's no longer one year, two years, it's now three.  A number that's on it's way to 10 or 15 years.  Still I wonder at this sensation of time.  How can grief be so fresh and almost living in me when it's been three years?  It's only a number.  Time really isn't measured is it?  It's like mashing your play-dough all together and getting an ugly color that you didn't know existed. Well that's the last two months for me.  Ugly mashed play-dough.  I do my best to handle how I feel most of the time but even I can't seem to keep it going when I'm flooded with enough of the sadness.  Thank goodness for good friends who listen to me and sometimes lie to me and say everything is going to be okay.  Even if you feel like it isn't true it's still comforting to hope that it will be.  I know that Spring is coming.  The cold and horrible weather isn't helping.  I'm not a winter person anymore.  I need the blue sky and the warmth more and more.  These dreary months of white sky that tell you snow is coming are just so empty and cold.

I'm grateful for what I have and that usually pulls me out of this terrible grief I feel but if it could have an actual feeling it would be that 10 degrees below zero dismal day of snow and just empty blankness.  That wasn't you.  You were yellow and bright and warm.  This time of year is the exact opposite of you.  You are sunshine and sand and bright beautiful green trees and grass.  Waterfalls and everything alive.  The world feels dead to me at this time of year and that's probably why it's been so hard lately.  I can't feel you in this dismal climate.  Oh I turn up the heat in the house, turn on the fireplace and pack on the fuzzy socks but I can only try and fool myself into warmth for so long before I realize I'm trying to forget what's outside and maybe inside of me too.

I need Spring.  I'm so done with winter.

January is gone.  2020 came so fast and this month has evaporated faster than most I can remember in my life.  I'm glad for it though.  The speed of time is just a reminder that life is short and there's much to appreciate in this quick stay.  I try to make the most of it.  All of it.  Even the things that hurt.  We're supposed to sit in those moments and find a sunset, a blade of grass, feel the earth moving at 1700 mph and just marvel at the miracle our world really is.  We're supposed to realize that death is part of life.  Everything works in perfect harmony to keep us alive, not just living but ALIVE, so we can laugh, cry, suffer and love each other.  It's profound and overwhelming.

So days disappearing don't bother me much.  It's all part of the plan.  Those lazy summers when I was 11 years old, that used to last forever were so sweet and warm.  I would ride my bike in circles around the neighborhood and at night all of us kids would come outside after dinner and play hide and seek together around the block.  If you got caught it was "One, two, three on Adele!"  There was a safe spot and if you could get to it fast enough you were "safe".  It was usually a tree that was the safe spot and all you had to do was touch it.

I can't always get to that tree.  I hear those words from time to time, "One, two three on Adele!!"  I don't always feel safe.  Especially now that I realize how fragile the world I live in is.  That life is precious and can be taken away in a heartbeat.  Loss can shape shift your world completely.  Life can still be good after a major loss.  It can still be enough.  Sometimes when I feel vulnerable I put my arms around that tree.  That safe spot.  I've clung to it and held on for dear life sometimes but this month I felt myself loosening my grip on it.  Leaning back and gazing around my world.  There's a forest of trees, an ocean of fish and a sky full of sunshine.  The heat of the summer is still there.  It's not a lazy summer anymore it's more like a flash that warms my soul and I've got to be paying attention to feel it.

"Come with me where dreams are born and time is never planned."

Okay Peter Pan.  Lets go.

Three Years

Taryn,

It's been three years this week that you were taken from me.  Three years since I brought home a fruit smoothie and had you steal it from me after I got only two sips.  You haven't raided my jewelry box and looked at me like a little girl and said, "Can I have it?"  I haven't seen that fire in your eyes when someone has been done an injustice or had you give me a hard time over one of my choices.  I haven't seen the latest color of your hair or Hello Kitty nails on your long slender fingers.  It's been so long and yet I remember everything about you.  Every last detail of your face.

I hate this.  I hate remembering that awful day you left us.  I'm hoping with enough time that all the details will fade so far into the past that I won't remember the color of the cinder block walls in that waiting room at the hospital, the doctor's eyes as he looked at me when there was no hope and his voice when he gently touched my arm and said, "She's gone."  After that I struggle to take a deep breath.  There is no understanding.  How could there be?  It's so confusing for a parent to be without their child and still go on breathing.  Something is fundamentally out of balance with that and you know what I'm talking about because when Kayan died you gladly followed him just like I wish I could have followed you.  This life isn't done with me yet.  I know that.

You will always be this beautiful thing.  The score on my heart that is a tattoo of a mother.  I wear the same one you do.  Mine is for you and yours is for Kayan.