There is an emptiness within that will never be filled, a broken heart. I ponder if her birthday is even harder than their death date?
When a birthday approaches, especially for a mother, you are brought back to the birth. Depending, this can be mixed, which my heart breaks even thinking about. For Bella, I remember the weeks leading up, the labor that never ended, until it did at 1am on June 21, 2009. I remember, phew, she is a cancer, like me, and it is Father’s Day, which is good, because I did not get anything for Jesse. It was a celebration.
Each birthday after, a celebration of her birth. A celebration of her. Now, it is another harsh reminder she is not here to celebrate. It is another reminder as each year passes, how I cannot even imagine what she would be like anymore, a gap that only increases with time. It is a moment, like that moment in the movies, when your life is ending, of the images that pop up before your eyes of your life. It is like that, except the images are of her, of her birth, of her first steps, when she ate avocado as her first food, her first steps, of her life, her laugh, of the morning of May 8th, 2014, of the evening of May 8th, 2014, of that following Tuesday when I held her one last time. They flash before my eyes, my body the roller coaster of muscle memory following.
My heart breaks everyday without her.This week, when there is a moment of remembering that Friday is fast approaching, I do the only thing I know how to do, which is do. Make a list, complete it. Make another, complete it. Repeat. There is a low grade nausea, an exhaustion, a struggle to smile at times, a far off look. I look at my cat who runs around like a maniac at times, and within those times, it looks like her brain is shorting out, mine feels similar. I keep forgetting things, go over things that I just did that morning, much to the dismay of people around me. When I touch it, much like a hand when it touches an open flame, I jerk back, because I sink, the sadness washes over me, threatening to drown me. I am not in a fantastic space. Yet, there are parts where I am. I leave for Greece on Sunday for my honeymoon. I am ecstatic over that. Which, that being said, I am taking a few weeks off my blog and will resume in a month.
It is both. It is always both. It always will be both. Today, I am grateful that is both, not just the rabbit hole of despair.
Dear sweet Maribella, my fire, my heart, my homer, mommy misses you, and I so wish you were here to celebrate your double digit birthday, celebrate you as you turn 10. I so wish….
