Through The Motions

I have said since the day that everything happened that I don't know how to continue living without her.  I know that I have to, I know that I can't run away, I can't hide, I can't go on a bender...I have no easy way out, because I have Khaily.  We all have times in our lives, depressive periods, where we tell everyone that we are just going through the motions...but I don't think anyone really knows what it means.  I figured it out today.  Today was my first day back at work.  I didn't want to go.  I have no desire whatsoever to be among the living.  I know that everyone means well, but every time I hear, "I'm so sorry," "I can't imagine," "if there's anything I can do..."  I find myself screaming in my head, "Please just leave me alone! I don't care that you're sorry, no you can't imagine, and unless you can raise the dead there's nothing you can do!"  Everyone that I know gets to go home to their family at night...tuck their babies into bed...sing them a lullaby...read a story...watch a movie....I too, can do all these things, and I do, with Khaily....but it will never be the same.  I will never feel the same overwhelming sense of joy in these moments...every moment I have with Khaily right now, though precious and very very dear to me, is tinged with a sadness that I can't escape.  The sadness of knowing that I once did all these things with BOTH of my girls.  The sadness of knowing that once was will never be again.  I used to go to the store and think, "Oh! Khyri would look so cute in that, I'll have to come back and get it for her!" And it was exciting!  Today, I was in ShopKo...cutest little outfit...black pants, baby pink shirt, cute little black belt around the middle, and I thought to myself, "That...would have been so cute on Khy..."  knowing that I will never get to find out.  When I dressed her before the funeral I was torn between buying her a brand new outfit to wear to Heaven, putting her in one of the gorgeous dresses that she already had, and putting her in play clothes...because angel babies like to play too right?  I finally settled on an outfit that I had bought matching for her and Khaily...a pink ruffle top, with a zebra "flower" thing on the left shoulder, and zebra print leggings...I hadn't done laundry that week so she's wearing a blue pair of Khaily's socks, and the night before her funeral, on my birthday, I went and bought them matching rainbow leapoard print slippers...so she would be comfy and her piggies wouldn't get cold.  I did her hair in pigtails...I don't know why...she never liked having her hair done...but the few times I had done her hair, pig tails had always been my favorite on her....and I put in a zebra stripe bow in the right side.

same shirt...different pants and shoes instead of slippers...but...isn't she beautiful?


I don't really know how zebra became her thing...it was always my thimg haha..for Valentines day the month before she was born Jason bought me a fuzzy zebra print blanket, and when we first found out I was pregnant he bought me a zebra print body pillow...I guess it just carried over, I've always associated it with her.  I wonder a lot of the times if I should have put her in long sleeves...especially when I go to the cemetary and see the snow all over her grave...I know it's warm in heaven, but I'm her mama..I will always worry about her.  She has never been safer than she is now, and still I worry.

As I was saying...about the motions...I figured out what it meant today.  I peeled myself off the couch at 6AM.  I cried.  I got in the shower, dressed, went to work, paperwork, meeting, phone calls, left work.  Ran some errands, threw some ice melt over the stairs, went to dinner at my brothers. Now I'm back on the couch.  My whole goal today was to get back to my couch.  This day had no goals, no expectations.  I did what I had to do purely because I had to do it, just to get back here.  I have never been this person.  I LOVE my job.  I love my residents.  I love spending time with my family.  I have always gone to work knowing that I might make a difference in someone's day that day, and today I didn't even try.  I smiled at the appropriate times, I accepted the hugs and the "welcome backs," I spoke when spoken to and did as I was supposed to...but for the first time in my life, I had an entire day of hollow "have to's."

Other mother's that I have spoken to have told me that, while it never goes away  the pain does become more of an ache.  They've told me that I will smile again, that someday there will be happiness again, just of a different shade.  I can't see it.  I can't see how I will ever be anything more than a hollow shell of what I once was.  I hope that they are right, because if they aren't then it is going to be a tragically long lifetime for me.