Zombie

January 30, 2015
I've been thinking a lot tonight about the days following the accident.  I don't remember chunks of it, which I'm told is normal, the mind's way of protecting itself, but there are pieces that I remember-though none of them really have a timeline or a real "shape" to them.  I remember watching a lot of TV...trying to focus on something other than the emptiness in our house.  I remember driving around with nowhere to go...just to be going somewhere.  I remember after the funeral, I laid on the couch and just stared at her picture for what felt like hours.  Khaily was at my brother's. I went back to the cemetery and arranged the flowers...the wind had knocked them over, so I removed the buds from the stems and put them in the dirt. Then I went to the bar, I just wanted a shot, just one.  So I had a shot. I went home and cried. A lot.  I stared into her bedroom. A few days later I decided to clean the playroom...in hindset it's better that I did it then in the fog of the shock, because even now it's so hard for me to go in there, even though Khaily still plays in there all the time obviously.  I went and got "Serenity, Courage, Wisdom" tattooed on the inside of my wrist, because we put the serenity prayer in her program.  I would muddle through the days, and drink at night---not to get drunk, I never got drunk, just to get enough of a buzz to fall asleep.  The week between the day it happened and the day of the funeral I cleaned a lot....I listened to sad songs a lot...I remember the day Jason's mom got here, we went to the cemetery to pick plots...and then we came back to the house and I cleaned, I didn't know what else to do. I cleaned. Then we went to the funeral home to discuss the order of the service.  Then I went with my parents to pick the flowers.  When I got home the local news crew came to do an interview.  I did a phone interview with the newspaper.  I remember thinking, "are these people dumb?  I understnad that it's newsworthy, but don't they know that I have enough to deal with this week?"  I remember when Jen got here, it was the 22nd, I had just left the dentist and she was waiting outside my house.  I let her take the caterpiller she had bought Khy in June when she came to visit.  Or maybe it was August?  I don't remember.  We went and got our nails done the next day...it was my birthday.  The day before my baby's funeral, was my birthday.  I hated it.  I didnt want it. Why should I get 24 when she only had 1?  I remember meeting with the pastor and begging for answers, he had none...and I knew that he wouldn't, but I had hoped.  See, he had gone through the same thing.  His son also drowned, when he was 17.  I was hoping that in the years since he would have gained some kind of holy knowledge, that he would have the answers that I so desperately need.  He didn't.  It was awful.  We left there and I went and bought a MercyMe CD.  Hoping to find answers. None there either.  I remember feeling like a zombie.  I still tell people that the only reason I'm here is because I don't believe in suicide and breathing is involuntary...I'm certain that is the only reason I made it through that week.  I remember the heavy air.  The density of change.  I remember being in the viewing room getting her dressed and literally having to hold on to my ribs because it hurt so bad...not just emotionally, but I physically felt like my chest was splitting.  I remember sitting on my bed arranging photos for the funeral.  I remember reminiscing over each photo...I'd shut my eyes and remember the exact moment of each of them.  I still do this a lot.  I sit and I think.  I look at her pictures and remember being in the studio the day that our family pictures were done, I remember taking selfies with her while I was waiting for it to be time to go to work. I remember when she was only days old, looking at her and Jason on the floor and just knowing I wanted to remember that moment forever.   I remember after the funeral, there was a night that I put the CD from her service in, and I blasted it...I didn't know where I was going....but I drove....I ended up out in Shelly....hit 65th and went to Hitt Rd, and remembered the last time I had driven down that road...It was the straightest shot between work and the hospital, I was speeding, there was a white car in front of me and I was SO thankful that he was speeding too....I got to the light and it was red, and even though my emergency flashers were on and I was laying on the horn no one would let me through...I remember sitting at that light trying to get to the hospital and having to tell myself out loud that I couldnt run the light, I couldnt run the light because then I'd be in the hospital too and wouldn't be able to be with her....everything is such a jumble in my head.  I am missing huge chunks of days.  I don't remember who came and who went, I don't remember who brought what, I don't remember the phone calls or who sent cards and who didnt...I just remember that I was feeling everything and nothing all at once...Now I have days where I feel everything, and everything is SO painful.  It's such an overload to feel everything, the rage, the despair, the pain, the tears, all at once.  And I have days where I feel nothing.  Literally.  I don't feel happy or sad, I don't feel mad or hungry or thirsty...nothing.  These days I think are worse than the days when I feel it all.  The days that I feel it all, I look at her pictures and I hear her and I feel her baby soft skin and I see her smiling and laughing and it rips my heart out and the tears fall so easily and so steadily usually for the whole day.  THe days where I feel nothing it's like I'm not really here, it's almost like I'm in someone elses house and I don't know anyone or anything here...I look at the pictures and know mentally that I miss her and that I"m sad and that I want her back, but I dont feel anything in my chest...it's almost like I'm a zombie.  I feel hollow and not human on those days.  It's horrible, because when the feeling does come back there's a horrible guilt that comes with it.  A guilt from knowing that even though I wasn't really "me" in those moments, I looked at her picture and touched her things and it almost felt like she was a dream.

And then there's days like today.  Days where I can't decide whether she's gone or not.  I know it sounds crazy, but there are nights when I can almost convince myself that she's in her bed sleeping.  I know logically, my brain knows that she's not really here. But my heart just knows that she's not dead.  She can't be dead.  It's not possible she's just a baby.  She's asleep in her room, this is the world's longest nightmare, and I'm going to wake up to her sleepy cry at any moment.  I just know it.  She can't be dead.  Babies don't die. There was no funeral, I didn't see her lying there under a towel every day for a week, I didn't do all the things I just talked about doing.  It didn't happen.  It couldn't have happened.  Not to me.  Not to her.  It's not real. It can't be real.  Because if it's real, then it's still going to be real in ten years, and thirty, and fifty, and that's not possible.  She's just a baby, her birthday is coming and she's going to be here for it right? She has to be here it's her BIRTHDAY.  It's not okay to not be here for your own birthday.  It's not real, and I'm not going crazy...right?