Today is a hard day. Today is a really hard day. I think I deluded myself this year, thinking that since it is so close to half way over the month, that it would be easier, but it's not. For the last few days, I have walked up and down my stairs and kept smelling this smell. I couldn't place it. I thought it was from childhood, the memory was so far receded. Turns out, I think I just buried it. With the return of that memory, my heart and my head have been flooded for over two hours non stop. Guilt, pain, rage: They are all there. I hurt so bad, and what makes it worse, is this year, I am facing some ugly realities.
Turns out, the neighbors planted flowers to make their tiny piece of this crap hole we live in beautiful for them. I want to pretend like I love that they tried to be positive about it, but I really want to hop their fence and rip out every one of those forsaken flowers, just so they will stop smelling. They are beautiful flowers. They are the same ones my mother chose for us to plant in my garden when my daughter died. Busy work, she called it. Something to take my mind off the pain. Who knew that ten years later, I would hate that moment almost as much as I hate the loss of my daughter.
So, there I am walking down the stairs to go get my son from school, when it hits me; that smell. And somehow, that memory was ripped wide open. Yet, being the woman and mother I am, I have no choice but to continue the errand to pick up my son. I got there in one piece, bleeding on the inside, but managing to hold back the tears. My son gets in the car and he is so happy. It made me think of the life that I have now. I have two wonderful children, whom I love more than anything. I have a spouse that understands and feels with me, even without having been there. I have this life that I could never have dreamed would be so damned wonderful, no matter how hard it seems sometimes. Then, that is when I started to cry. The guilt of the reality that smacked me right in the heart was too much to bear. You see, ten years ago, I would have traded my life for the life of my daughter's. I would have done anything, given anything, to have given her the life I know she deserved, but now, I don't know that I would.
Most of you probably don't know how that feels, and heaven forbid you ever do. To admit to myself that I wouldn't go back and trade her life for mine, that one hurts. It makes me feel like the worst mother ever, even if the reason I wouldn't is because if I did, I wouldn't have my other daughter, or this life I worked so hard for. I feel like I am betraying her. I feel like I am failing her memory. I mean, what kind of person says they wouldn't trade the life they have now for their child's life.
I can't ever say, I would give anything for her back, because I wouldn't. I know there is a reason, but couldn't it have turned out different? Couldn't I just have everything I have and love now AND her? Truth is, I can't. Things happen in our lives for a reason. We don't understand them. There is no rhyme and reason for them. They just are. I know that. I really do. But, I am tired of facing a new truth every year. They just get harder and harder.
She would have been ten in two weeks. Ten years old. I never get to see that, and now I get to live with the guilt, that I wouldn't trade everything for it either. Damn it that hurts. It hurts nearly as much as losing her in the first place. It's almost like doing it again. I want to pretend that this is it and I am going to stop hurting this bad over it, but it's not. The reality is, in a few months, or a year, I have to say goodbye for real. Everything I have left of her is going to go when my grandmother does. So, yeah. This year sucks. And please, nobody tell me I am rushing things and thoughts. I know what's real and I face it head on because I would rather be in a dark place that I know well than in stupid "happy place" filled with those fucking flowers.
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