Some of you know my husband Chad fell 20 feet or so from the second story of our home off a ladder. I have thoughts on this whole experience I will share later.
For now. My heart is hurting for a family who I didn't even know. It seemed like a post I did a few months ago fit here. The parents of this teenage boy who died must feel some of what I'm about to share. However, my PRETEND story is just that...pretend. Theirs is not.
Father be with them in their time of hurting.
Here is my original post from October 2015:
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Ahhh, discipline.....
Because we are sick parents, we decided that on top of a good one month grounding, the kiddo needed to think about a thing or two and write us an essay. Basically, she was caught trying to plan something dangerous and got caught. We told her to write us an essay on who would be affected and how should she die. Morbid, yes, I know.
I was NOT getting anything more than a laundry list of things and felt there wasn't enough sincerity in it. So, I wrote my own take on it. I wrote how losing a daughter could affect me. I imagined what it would be like, although only a parent who has buried a child can know this.
Anyway, here it is, my imaginative situation, thank God! But I wanted to share it with you:
I was NOT getting anything more than a laundry list of things and felt there wasn't enough sincerity in it. So, I wrote my own take on it. I wrote how losing a daughter could affect me. I imagined what it would be like, although only a parent who has buried a child can know this.
Anyway, here it is, my imaginative situation, thank God! But I wanted to share it with you:
I can still smell her perfume. Her hairbrush was left on my sink. Her school work spills onto the table.
Her presence seems real although it isn’t. It is just a fleeting feeling that she will walk through the doors and come home.
As I open the pantry, I find an empty box of pop tarts, something she used to do. She would never through away the box. I think her pre-teen brain just got distracted easily. Nonetheless, I would give anything to find another box next week but I won’t, she is gone.
Her dirty socks spill from the laundry hamper in the hallway, something she would get to “later” there was always a later, now there is none.
I’ll never hear her pray for us at dinner anymore and laugh because it was always a funny little prayer. “And thank you Lord for little turdbucket,” a term of affection for our chocolate standard poodle Ruger Silas.
There will be no more clanking of plates as she unloads the dishwasher for me. Silence. She is gone.
The kittens remind me of her because she always loved to hold them and tell me which one was her favorite which seemed to change a lot.
The hallway on a Sunday morning is quiet, no clop clop of her boots that she loved so much. Church will be lonely without her sitting next to me. My daughter is with Jesus today. I can’t help but wonder if she sees me sitting there and is there with me.
I will donate a few of her books and keep the ones that remind me of her.
I decide to wait a bit before opening the door to her room and then I brave it. Her sheets smell like her and there’s a pre-teen girl innocence in the room. I feel as though my heart has been ripped from my body and I cry out WHY WHY WHY!
I cannot go through her things yet. I wonder if I will ever be able to. Does the hurting ever end or does a mom just learn how to manage the pain? I have trouble even hearing her cat Oscar squeak his little “meow” in the hallway. I feel like there is sadness in his eyes too.
Forget going to Chad’s parent’s home, the ranch in Karval. If it was hard to be there and remember our dog Zeus, it will be next to impossible to be there anytime soon. This is where our little girl learned to ride a horse, learned to love her cousins, cows, everything farm and ranch and even chores with Grandpa. He is so devastated by the loss and no work is done. Aunt Nikki comes to feed his cows. Uncle Travis helps with anything else. Grandma Sandy has gone to Yuma, Co to be with her twin sister because she wants to escape the memories if only for a little while.
My next trip to Oklahoma will be alone without her and the cheese fries at Eskimo Joes will not be the same. How does a parent just live with all of the memories flooding their heart on a daily basis?
Children are NOT supposed to go before their parents. It is un-natural and just out of balance. We are supposed to go first to leave them on this earth to live their lives. We are supposed to be the ones leaving behind the keepsakes and the legacy. We are not supposed to out-live our children. Why did this have to happen? I ask God Why and I don’t get an answer.
I just want one more day with her….just one more day. Can’t we just rewind? What did I do wrong? Why didn’t I see the dangers ahead? How could this have been prevented? Why? Why? Why?
I slip back into extreme sobbing and expel enough tears that I feel as if I will choke. I have a thought for a second that if I did, and I did die too, would I be with her again? Is heaven that close?
I cannot sleep, I cannot eat and I cannot feel anything except complete and total numbness and sorrow.
She wasn’t supposed to DIE!!! She was supposed to live and follow her dreams, marry a wonderful man and have a beautiful family, a privilege I was blessed with.
I will never have the answers and I will never stop searching for them. The peace I knew the day before is gone. The peace I took for granted has left. The peace I had with my family is no more. It is gone and it is done and I am forever changed because of it.
