Breathing.

Breathing.  Basic human function, requires no thought whatsoever, just happens, right? Until now.  I spent the following 6 days forcing my breath.  Funeral arrnagements, burial plots, casket, flowers, cards, people bringing food that I coudlnt touch....breathing....it is still the hardest part of my day. Something so simple, something so basic, the hardest thing to do, and the only thing I can do.  That week, I stayed busy.  Planned the funeral, got her dressed, anything I could, clinging to every little thing that I could do...because, reality is this was the last time I'd get to take care of her.  Every day I was at the funeral home, planning, visiting...holding her hands....staring at her....trying to capture every second that I could before they were gone.  Id run my fingers through her hair, stare at her and wait for anyhting at all to move...nothing moved.  I started sleeping with her blankie, a Minnie Mouse balnket that I bought her earlier this year.  Her seahorse also frequented my room that week...it was a pink seahorse that played lullabies and lit up...we had discovered about a month earlier that it was the only way to get her to go to sleep without crying.  I went and bought us lockets...a snippet of my hair in hers, a snippet of hers in mine.  I also bought a set of "big sis little sis" necklackes, she has the one that says "Big Sis" and I kept the one that says "Little Sis" for Khaily to have when she's older.  I gave her these trinkets on my birthday, the day before  her funeral.  I hated my birthday.  I was so angry that I got 24 and she had only gotten 1.  I went with my parents to pick the flowers...they were beautiful arrangements of purple and green...that's how we would tell the kids' stuff apart...Khaily has always been pink and yellow, Khy was purple and green.  Some people have siad that they only way to continue is one day at a time...those who have been here know that its more like one breath at a time. In and out, and the hardest part is feeling like I'm wrong for doing so.  Our sole responsibility as parents is to keep our kids safe and happy...and alive...and I couldn't.  I wasn't there, I didn't know, and I feel every day like I shyould have.  That morning when I dropped off the girls, she cried...she always cried, but there was something different that morning.  I picked her back up and gave her loves while she clung to me, and then I put her down, took a deep breath, thoguht for a milisecond about taking the day off, said "she'll only cry for a second," and walked away. I walked away. I went to work, and that's it.  That's all I got. A hug, a squeeze, and to listen to her cry while I walked away.  I didn't know.  I didn't know.

Khyri Lynn Raffetto

Khyri Lynn was my baby girl.  I remember being pregnant and being afraid that her and her sister Khaily wouldnt like eachother.  They were best friends.  Inseperable.  Partners in crime.  Khyri was a beautiful baby girl with the most beautiful soul.  She had the greatest, most magical laugh, and a smile that literally took up her whole face.  She loved hugs, she loved kisses, she loved snuggles, and playing, and all the normal one year old pass times.  She completed our family.  I mean, life was great when it was just me, Jason, and Khaily, but Khyri was the final piece that made us a whole.  I can't believe  that she's gone.  I still find myself thinking that I need to go get her up from a nap, or sometimes I'll start to get her clothes ready for the day...and she's not here.  There is an emptiness in our home now that will never be filled.  Her favorite toys still scatter the playroom....I tried to clean them up, but Khaily looked at me and said, "Mommy, please don't do that to Khyri's toys...please don't put  them in a box..."  So they stayed in the playroom.

Angry At God

We have all had moments where we are mad at the Man upstairs.  You break down in the middle of nowhere in December, "why is this happening to me?"  You  lose your job, "What did I ever do to You?"  We have all been there, but there is no angrier human than the mom who watches her baby die.  I have done everything right by my kids.  I don't claim to be perfect, I've got regrets like anyone else, but my kids are my world, and I am a good mom.  I baby-proofed til my fingers bled; doorknob covers, drawer stops, outlet plugs, apartments with high windows, guardrails on beds, every thing you can possibly think of to protect kids I did.  My kids are my life, of course I did everything I had to.  The day that I enrolled them at that particular  daycare I had gone to EVERY daycare imaginable, including one on the very outskirts of town, and none of them were good enough for me.  None of them were safe enough, none of them had enough staff.  When I met this provider, there was instant calm.  It was the weirdest thing.  I saw the canal, I saw the fence, I asked my questions about them, I got my answers, we shook hands, signed papers, and then I left.  I put my trust in what I thought was a system...I assumed inspections had been done, inspections had been passed, and everything was in order...how was I supposed to know? My kids have never been in a daycare, they've never been with  anyone that I didn't know and trust personally.  I took a leap of faith.

After I left the hospital the day it happened, I was devastated...and then I was pissed...and then I was devastated...and then I was pissed...and so the cycle continues.  "What did I do to deserve this?"  "Why would You give her to me if you were just going to take her back?"  "Why am I being punished?"  "Why weren't You watching her better?" "How could You allow this to happen?"  "What happened to being all-loving and all-merciful?"  Every.Single.Day.  And I know that it will be a continuous struggle for the rest of my life.  I know that the alternative was her being brain dead, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place!  Isn't He supposed to have the final say in these things?  He could have given her abck to me healthy and happy and had it just be the biggest scariest thing of  my whole life and everything would be fine.  But He didn't.  He took her.  He left me here, and He took her.  I know that  there was a reason, I just wish that God and I could have a face-to-face sit down discussion about the reason behind it.  I am not one of those poeple who accepts that "accidents happen."  I don't accept that "sometimes we aren't  supposed to know the reason."  If I don't know the reason, if I can't have SOMETHING to hold on to out of this, then how am I supposed to go on and just...live?  I will never know.  And that, that is simply NOT okay with me.

Mom-onomics 101

It is currently 4:00 in the morning on the two week anniversary of my angel's funeral.  As I've sat up many nights crying, I've often wondered why it is that I am so worried about her being so far away when I know that God is taking good care of her.  Tonight...this morning...whatever....I reached a conclusion.  Once a mom, always a mom.  Whether she is here or there she is my baby.  Death doesn't change that, distance, time, nothing can change that.  I will always worry about my baby.  More so now that I can't call and check on her, or drop in and say "hi."  I will spend the rest of my life wondering if she got to bed on time, if she has a cuppy, who turned on her seahorse, is she warm, is she safe, etc., etc.  I've heard that everything in Heaven is perfect.  That there are no tears, no pain, and all  things needed are taken care of...but I'm her mom.  I know her like no one else knows her, I love her like no one else loves her.  I will worry about her as if she's at a sleep over until the day that I am there to make sure it's all getting done myself.  I wonder all the time  who she lives with...if she's with my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins...and then I worry about who she plays with...or if she's all alone...I worry that she's sad...that she misses us...I try not to cry, because she never liked it, but I can't stop.  I'm Khyri's mom.  I should be able to oversee her daily adventures.  I'm supposed to be the one taking care of her.  Sometimes I wonder if that's why this is so hard....I've handled every  detail of her life, for her whole life, and I'm not ready to trust someone else with that responsibility...after all, look what happened last time I did that.... :'(

Freeze

I wish I could. Every minute of every day.  I resent the world continuing, and I really really resent that the world thinks I need to continue with it.  I watch the cars, I watch the people...annoyed mom's in grocery stores, hyper-disciplinarian dads doing what hyper-disciplinarian dads do...and I just want to scream.  I want to be the chick in the movie who gets overwhelmed and everything around her freezes.  I'm not ready to move on.  I'm not ready to let go.  I still spend the larger part of my waking hours curled up on my couch with a box of tissues, clinging to the stuffed dog that was given to me at the hospital when she died.  I hate that no one understands, and I hate that everything is just supposed to keep moving.  I am dreading the day when I have to go back to work.  I cringe when I take Khaily to school.  I just want everything to FREEZE until I am ready to move with it.  It's like Im trying to run up a hill that is directly vertical.  One step, slide, two steps, slide, three steps...oh damn i broke my ankle.  I feel guilty when I have a decent couple hours, I feel guilty when I leave the cemetary, I feel guilty  when I don't go to the cemetary.  The guilt of the occasional smile is almost unbearable, I feel like a fraud when I play with Khaily because I'm smiling and laughing and answering her questions calm, cool, and collected but on the inside I can feel the fibers of my heart snapping one by one.  I miss my little girl.  I look around the house, and I can see her spinning in the living room, I can hear her footsteps running through the kitchen, I can feel her climbing up in my lap.  Everything hurts.  And I want it to stop.  I just wnat everything to stop.  Just for a minute.  Just long enough to breathe for like a second. But it won't. And that.just.sucks.

Guilt

I feel guilty every single day.  I know that I couldn't have saved her, I know that there's no way I could have known, I know that it wasn't my fault...but the guilt is horrible.  She cried every day when I left her there, but the provider insisted that it was only for a few minutes and when I picked her up she was always great and fine and everything was okay, so I called it separation anxiety.  I realize that when things like this happen  the mind remembers things differently, example: I am convinced that her cry was different that morning.  Whether it was or wasn't I honestly don't know.  What I do know, is that my urge to just take the girls and leave that day was stronger  than normal.  Maybe it's becuase I just didn't want to go to work, or maybe it's just another thing my mind is doing to torture myself.  The most recent bout of guilt is over the snow....I chose to bury my baby because the thought of her tiny body being burned to ash was just too much...but now there are several inches of snow on the ground and all I can think is that I left my baby out in the cold.  Logically I know that this is ridiculous, I know that it is only her shell out there and that her tiny angel spirit is perfectly fine and safe and warm...but every time I go to the cemetary all I can think is, "I hope she's okay, I should have buried her with a warmer blanket, I hope she's okay..."  Tonight I went out, brushed the snow off of her, and someone had put a blanket on her grave...I don't know who did it, but if you ever read this, thank you.  Thank you for sharing my thoughts. I miss her so much.  Even on good days I feel like someone is punching me in the stomach with every breath...and that's on the best of the good days...

The Unknown

It's the worst part.  Not just not knowing exactly what happened, but not knowing what she would have been like now...so much could have happened in the last month...would she be talking now?  How would her personality have changed?  What would her favorite things be this month?  Would she like the snow?  What would she have looked like on her first day of preschool? Kindergarten? High school?  I was robbed of so many experiences with her, and so was she.  It's not fair.  My sister told me the other day that all parents who lose a child grieve the same but differently.  The ones who lose an adult child grieve the life their babies had, the ones who lose a teenager grieve the past and the future, those of us who lose our babies grieve for the short time we had and the long time we won't have.  People sometimes say it's better to celebrate the life than to mourn the death...but what do you do when there wasn't enough life to really celebrate?  My baby had a wonderful year on earth, she was so loved and so loving and the happiest baby ever and that is such a comfort to me sometimes, but she didn't get to live.  She wont' get to graduate high school, she'll never cure cancer, or be president, she won't get to do any of the things that we as humans are entitled to do...and it's not fair.  That's nothing to celebrate, that is raw loss.  There's a reason why there's no definition for a parent who loses a child, its because there are no words to explain it.  None.  You can try, I've tried a million times to decide what exactly I "am." And at the end of the day, I'm just a broken mom.  We all worry as parents about "what if soemething happens to my baby," "oh i can't imagine if that was me," we see horrible stories on the news, we hear terrible things that have happened, and we cringe to think it could happen to us...its a whole different level of mortification when it happens to you.  I made Khaily french toast sticks this morning, and wondered to myself if Khy would have wanted them or if she would have thrown them on the floor...likem she did with most things she didn't want...there are so many unknowns, and the worst feeeling in the world is knowing that they will be unknown forever.  I will never have the answers to the questions that I have, the worries, the hopes, the what if's...I will never know...and I don't know if anyone can ever truly have closure without knowing.