Turn

I grasp my empty stomach
Clutch my constricted heart
Fight my mind
No no no
No pain right now
It's not time

Turn, turn, turn
No friends
No family
No outlets
Will take this from me

No one to turn to
Nowhere to run
No end of life
No end of time

Good days
Mask the tiny specks
Floating in my mind
Through me
She floats with me
Smiling
She's in me and of me
But not here

The good days
Looking away from the long-haired girls
Mothers and daughters
New babies
Flip flops
Summer dresses
Beaches
Who will show me how to dress?

The good days store the pain
The grief and sickness
Must return
The desperation
To end the pain
Returns


Nowhere to turn
No one to tell
No place to go
Nothing can save me
No one can help me

The answers lie inside
The suffering shows in my eyes
On my face
Defeat, desperation
Insecurity and anxiety
People say they see it
I didn't know
I don't want them to see it

Time will never bring my salvation
Twin souls not to be separated
Acceptance
She's dead
Faith
God heals
Hope
I have purpose
Energy
I can't feel you

Nowhere to turn
No one to talk to
No place to go
Nothing can assure me
No one can help me
I suffer and beg to be taken away
Until we meet again
This is my fate

Lonely
Alone
Desperate
Angry
Turn only inside and find a void
That once carried hope, faith
I clutch this body
My breasts
I carried her
Fed her
Where do I turn
Except in circles

 

One Year After Losing my Daughter to Suicide

Unedited from original 2016

Let’s get the questions out of the way first. No, I don’t feel any better. No, I’m not unusual in this. No, this is not a quick process and it doesn’t ease up after 11 months. No, I did not enjoy the holidays, even with family as there was a clear and significant part of our family missing. Yes, I’m getting help but grief has no timeline and no rules. The only healthy thing I would advise that everyone should do is to stay alive. It’s not a matter of what you want to do for yourself, especially as a parent. I stay alive for my family. Yes, suicidal thoughts are normal. No, they don’t last forever. No, having another child doesn’t help and people who have lost their only child, although I try to connect and even replace all of her needs by transferring them to my son, I believe I have done more harm than good to him. People who comment that at least I have another child is like erasing her from 22 years of our lives. My son is different with different needs and I focus on him as I feel I’ve always done. Just as I focus on my relationships with my family and partner.

I remember things now but almost never know the date. I don’t remember people’s birthdays that I clearly remembered in the past. I don’t remember the first 6 months or about after her passing from the physical. I don’t feel the immense and excruciating physical pain that rocked my body in the second and third months and I don’t wake up every day with panic but the anxiety presents.

 I feel as if I’m not rushing myself but failing at healing so that I can honor Taylor. I want to educate and raise funds for Borderline Personality Disorder and teach about mental health. I want to get a good job first for a year and have no interest in doing it because I feel like a massive weight is sitting on my chest still. I feel useless and hopeless. I tried to learn astrology, I tried to learn about crystals, I tried the I Ching and tarot cards, Christianity and I read about other religions to find out how others see death in the physical and how to reach her in her spirit form. None of it helps. Counseling has helped with other relationships and group meetings are horrible for me. People are “stuck” for years and years and I cannot live like this forever. I’ll give myself the time now but in this time I suffer with my Self. I do not feel useful and do not want to hear that people need me. My immediate and caustic response is that she needed me and I failed. I know that’s not the “right” perspective but good luck changing a parent’s process.

I’m not even close to the same optimistic, funny, hard-lined animal advocate. I don’t blame myself for focusing on Africa but I’m completely different now. I don’t feel hope except for my son and partner. I don’t feel happy inside. I am not optimistic. I am depressed and I believe still in shock. I do take medication and don’t care what people think about it.

I hang my head every single time I see my parents or her friends, feeling I took her away from them even though I know it’s not true. Stop giving me logic. I can be logical on some days and even for a week. But, there is nothing I can say to my crying parents who are now losing my big sister and their daughter to cancer. I am trying so hard not to have regrets about her and love her and help her transition peacefully. That’s all I can do.

I ask questions every day and try to go back and examine what happened in those last months and days and I want to know why no one told me, why I felt anxious and didn’t know why, why no doctor or counselor ever asked the right questions or even mentioned BPD. I am angry sometimes and I’m scared I’ll always feel this way. I want to go back and talk to her about the diagnosis and to the doctor who she said made her feel like there wasn’t much hope for her for at least a year. She wasn’t talking to me about that at the time. I want to expose her abuser because he hasn’t changed a bit, even after cutting her down. He was the last person she spoke to after she tried to call me. He abused her until the end and she stepped off the chair. How can you possibly think a year of this trauma would be better?

 

I know all of the rational answers and I don’t want to hear anyone mitigate the process I’m going through. The best answer I’ve received to date when I have had to tell people she passed is “I’m sorry.” That’s it. People don’t understand it and I’m ok with that. I understand. I’m not holding anyone accountable but myself. But, for me this is what an almost year looks like and this is where I am. I am angry, fearful, in despair, selfish, without an ounce of self-love (I don’t even understand what that means), and in physical pain. The only advice I can give now to anyone is to please phone a friend or 10 friends if it means you’d take your life. I understand completely why you want to if you’re suicidal. It makes sense to me. But, things will change and suicide is permanent and ruins the lives of those who will stick by you and will suffer. I won’t let anyone suffer for me the way I suffer for Taylor.

Inside my head I rage, I scream, I cry, I flail. My mind still cannot comprehend what has taken me a year to understand. I am in shock, I torture myself with questions, and no I am not better. No one who has lost a child has EVER told me that they are “better” after the first year. I heard it’s the worst but you don’t get “better.” The most I can do is wait…feel useless waiting…for the day that I can pick myself up and create a new “me,” which is the last thing I want to do.

I want to see my son happy and successful. I want a better relationship with my parents and partner. I want to WANT to do something good again. I want to WANT to live fully again. She cried as I held her and kissed her head. She said, “I don’t want you to leave but I’m proud of you.” I said, “I’ll cancel right now. I will not get on that plane if you just say the word.” She wanted me to go and walked away a little teary. She could not reach me as she was taking her life. I can’t reach her physically and a year is not even close to feeling a bit better.

 

I’m not writing this for sympathy, empathy or through the Ego. I’m writing to tell you that if someone is suffering, support them like I have been supported and don’t do it for that first week or month. So many friends have returned to their lives because Taylor was not their daughter. I understand that. But, if you do make the commitment to support someone, remember you’re walking with them and possibly holding them up or allowing them to hold on for one more day, for life…for hope. This writing is an example of one way I try to “fix” people. I want to help people and when people call me with problems because it gives me a sense of purpose. I just couldn’t fix her from Africa or for 22 years of her life. I will sit with my pain until it no longer serves me. I’m told that suffering is our greatest teacher. I’ll let you know when I figure out that lesson. But, it’s not after a year.

Managing Holiday Grief at the Office

What do you say to a co-worker who has lost a significant loved one or worse, how do you function in the workplace after losing one of your own? None of us really know what to say to people who have experienced loss. So, most times we say nothing at all. As the holidays approach, pay close attention to your workplace culture around normalizing the human experience of  love and loss and human beings experiencing emotions in the workplace. Grief in the workplace can be difficult for all and expressed by all. I strongly recommend reading the neuroscience behind grief in  O'Connnor's book, "The Grieving Brain: The Surprising Science Behind Love and Loss." O'Connor describes what the shock does to the brain and you can see why your co-worker may need a minute or two to catch up. The book frankly made me feel normal in my grief. 

Never again should the words, “You need to keep your personal life at home” be uttered at work as those words stem from a stoic and toxic environment. Co-workers can offer a few minutes of refuge, with offers like, “Do you want to take a walk, or just sit with me for a moment" instead of saying get it together. Distract your team member with a joke or ask for help on something if their mind tends to stay in that pain. Overtalking about the death is not helpful to the brain, according to O'Connor.

Some emotions we thought we reconciled or buried come back even years later during the holidays. People cope by a quick jaunt outside, to the car, to the restroom for a quick walk, talk, or cry or to just sit in silence to settle the body and breathe. After a brisk walk away, stroll back in to the office or jump back on that Zoom feeling refreshed. Listen by making eye contact and listening with no advice. Sometimes, work may be the safest place to be if we have support. But, some of us were taught that to be strong, we need to not show human emotion. We know that fierce strength is a silent killer in every way from addictions to heart disease. You don't never bury your feelings. You allow them to flow through you or they manifest into physical disease. Cry it out.

“The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.”

― Alfred North Whitehead

Why are holidays so hard?

The holiday season is about family or lack there of and it's about money and pressure and belief systems. Ask around how many people dust off festive decor and remember the people who owned that stuff before you did. The person we lost plays a vital role still. Include them in discussions about family members if other family's member are discussed. Since my mom died, I have never received a wrapped gift again from anyone. Not a new car just maybe a hat or something tiny. Loss seeps into all the little decorated crevices. You think of buying them gifts, talking about them at work, and their favorite dishes or traditions during this festive time. 

IT IS NORMAL TO MISS SOMEONE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. 

Most of the time we want you to speak of them, ask questions about their lives, and honor the person who passed on with a word of kindness but only at these appropriate times. In fact, there are several ways to acknowledge and honor the person who passed on. 

For the grief spasms that can occur so long after a loved one has passed, it's normal to be incapacitated. One of O'Connor's trusted best practices for the grieving brain is to stay busy and keep a normal routine. When the mind is troubled, the body falls ill more often, especially if the grieving experiences PTSD and high levels of depression and anxiety, often healed by EMDR trauma therapy.  

Work places sometimes host calm rooms for the purpose of resetting the nervous system, or they should. Walking in nature or exercise all year long, every morning at sunset resets the nighttime pain and you arrive at work refreshed.

Surprisingly, being at work helps us feed the prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain where hope is found in the creation of the moment. When we calm or distract the brain from ruminating, glucose changes course and decreases the limbic response. We calm the body and we can think. At work, we perform tasks in a safe environment for the brain. Social interaction offers the possibility to feel whole and to be surrounded by people we count on and who count on us. Ask the survivor how he or she can be supported. Productivity can be fostered even a little bit from hope. Hope gives us drive and a meaningful existence in the workplace. 

A healthy workplace offers the grieving social support which is critical to healing.  The holidays are the perfect time to honor the whole human in your presence. The work place is the perfect setting to give back to the community and heal your heart. Organize a sock or coat drive, a food drive with your co-workers. Make it a contest that will impact the community effectively and cheerfully. 

Being of service in any community and giving love heals the brain and body when grief displays as love without that special person to love now.

Now is the time to schedule wellness trainings for the mind, body, and spirit. We function as a whole person. Your workplace can become a safe haven for the person who experiences loss. Thankfully, we're learning to foster workplaces that allow for support through grief, creating opportunities for more productivity, a solid culture of awareness and trust, and even a nice celebration for the holidays.

Halloween, Taylor-style

I guess you’re impressed with qualities you admire in yourself and in my case, I admired my daughter’s  independent views on a few issues that we not only agreed upon but I think she may have listened to me at some point so I felt a deep and abiding ribbon that wrapped us together beautifully. We and she and she made it all look so natural.

Taylor and Tommy have always participated in Halloween. I loved to hand out candy and the kids usually went with their father to gather far too many treats. It was a dad thing for them and it was good for them. I loved the creativity of their decision-making for costume. Tommy was a firefighter one year and Taylor, for some reason, maybe because it’s only been less than a year…I just can’t think that far back. I do remember that as the kids got older, they went with friends or in Tommy’s case didn’t go at all, like a lot of growing kids. Taylor, though dressed up until her last Halloween when she was only 21. I wonder who she would have been this year.

 

 

I still have some of their costumes. Tommy was Woodstock and Taylor was Snoopy. She loved 101 Dalmatians so it worked. Then, my mind jumps to Tommy in a long cape and sword and Taylor as a cute Alice in Wonderland. I feel like I was kind of set up on a soul level, especially with this movie. She loved it. I have that costume and it was just her thing to dress up every year even until last year, her last year. My last year with her and Tommy. She was Pocahontas one time and told everyone the facts about the Disney movie. I completed an excellent class in History that took us to Colonial Williamsburg so Taylor knew all about Pocahontas and refused to watch the movie when I told her. I loved that.

Taylor spent her Halloweens out. We had parties for everything at our house, any excuse all through their childhoods and it was always just kids and me and it was always uproariously funny with Taylor laughing the loudest. But, for Halloween she went out. And, dressed up in cute costumes…Taylor-style. She just never wanted to be the dirty teacher or dirty anything. Her opinion was made known to these girls that they need to respect themselves or they will lose respect of any man. Her choice and the way she saw her own identity.

 

Taylor never came home drunk, either. We’re both terrible drinkers and she didn’t like to feel out of control. She went to parties, some weren’t the best locations or groups, but she left when she needed to. But, I thought it was cool that she didn’t identify parties as places to lose your mind. She noticed how people look at act. She wanted to stay alive driving. I think she probably went for the food and picked up some food on the way to the party and on the way home. It was her thing.

We did buy pumpkins and we have been to pumpkin patches. The kids weren’t into Charlie Brown much but we did watch it when I could beg them annoyingly enough. This year, someone bought a pumpkin for me because Taylor loved Halloween. I brought out all her costumes I could find. I was amazed to find that one of her boxes contained Tommy’s sword from so very long ago. She also kept his name badge from his first job. She didn’t always say it, but she was so sentimental.

 

Taylor was sensitive and loved scary movies. What? I didn’t understand it and frankly, when I finally convinced her that the 80’s version of Poltergeist was terrifying, she and a friend watched it in the basement with the lights off. Not me, I don’t like scary movies. I could hear them laughing all the way upstairs. I guess the cinematography was pretty outdated. Tomorrow night I’ll be alone and silent on Halloween, not knowing which stockings go with the shoes or how to help her with her hair or of course, shape her eyebrows last minute. Halloween is Taylor’s favorite holiday. Tomorrow, I need to do something to honor her, even if I feel like I’m drowning. I’ll dress up and read books to kids. I’ll just love her and Tommy and all of the rest of my “kids.”

Paradox

I feel paralyzed. Like there is a hand on my chest. Hard push against Me. I feel grounded but not Grounded. The thoughts go around in my mind and I try to examine even the most rudimentary of ruminations but I can’t keep up. I can’t speak.

I know there is something right because I can work and I’m good at my job and good for the kids and the schools and I like it. I know there is something wrong because I question my job, wondering if it’s too much emotionally. I see a girl with long hair or simply watch one struggle with a math test and she’s tiny and she bring me her work. Her name is Taylor. I give her the attention and the love I would have given my Taylor but the pain etches somewhere in me. Can I give without wanting in return?

There is something right because I still want to be needed and loved and entertained. There’s something wrong because I don’t hear my phone or see any cars in the driveway and feel abandoned. The emotional mind versus the logical mind. It's absurd. I need this solitude to grieve.

And, I’m supposed to know, to KNOW that we are all one aspect of the Universe or of God and that this separation of form, of Taylor no more, no more, no more….sends me gasping for air and wishing for and end to it all. We are supposed to know that we are still together a spiritual being having a human what? Experience? No, sometimes I cannot hear that. That equals acceptance and promises freedom. But, I want to rage and the Ego is so massive. Steps in to keep me in the shadows. I miss her physically. She is no more, no more, no more. She is a memory and part of my education is to learn to live in the present and that she is in the present and with me presently and the freedom is knowing how to love her for Her without the form.

 

I can’t touch her long hair, smell it, brush it like when she was a little girl. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. This will subside, I heard. I can already be redirected and the my Purpose is to learn this so that I can help people through it in whatever way I can and hopefully that will look like NOT having to go through it as much.

I think I’m meant to thrash and be alone for most of my time. Maybe more time with companionship during the day would be less maddening. But, I must experience it, right? Grieving is normal, right? The feeling of dying inside? Some monks observe the deceased in morgues. Just sit there in the stillness observing, looking at death. No judgement.

In all other times and places I can be trusted to move through the day and love whoever is with me. I know Taylor felt that. She put on a mask. She laughed. She was angry. She was overwhelmed, joyful, strong, proud, fearless and broken. How can You make perfection broken? Why MUST the ties that bound us, wove us into each other, her at my breast, on my hip, by my side…why must we have been that interwoven? Because I have a purpose? I had a purpose. You, Taylor were my purpose and you always will be but at this time, I must be carried. Because the thought of never seeing you again for the rest of my days comes with complete disintegration of my duties and roles in everyone else’s lives. You trumped the world, my daughter. And, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just broken.

 

I know it’s time to pour my heart and soul into my sister and my family, dogs, son, job. But, I can’t get up. Because there is a hand on my chest forcing me to witness life through the eyes of the broken. I actually understand now why she did what she did. It was wrong and it was a split decision and it would have been ok or she would have suffered forever. But, we could have fought together. I’m ashamed that I don’t want to stay or can’t think of the people I’m supposed to want to stay for. I’ll find a way so I can teach the way. I’ll find a way so I can teach the truth of the suffering and the witnessing of madness, sorrow, and a questionable need for love from others so strongly that any and every Thing in the world of form is abandonment. Shock. I’ll find a way to keep someone here or to SCREAM from the mountaintops what Borderline is. Why we need to fund the cure. She deserved to love herself like I love her. Stability in one regard seems so out of reach. So, I’ll march on. Hide in the bathrooms and cry, return with a smile and a book to read.

I feel paralyzed. Like there is a hand on my chest. Hard push against Me. I feel grounded but not Grounded. The thoughts go around in my mind and I try to examine even the most rudimentary of ruminations but I can’t keep up. I can’t speak.

 

I know there is something right because I can work and I’m good at my job and good for the kids and the schools and I like it. I know there is something wrong because I question my job, wondering if it’s too much emotionally. I see a girl with long hair or simply watch one struggle with a math test and she’s tiny and she bring me her work. Her name is Taylor. I give her the attention and the love I would have given my Taylor but the pain etches somewhere in me. Can I give without wanting in return?

There is something right because I still want to be needed and loved and entertained. There’s something wrong because I don’t hear my phone or see any cars in the driveway and feel abandoned. The emotional mind versus the logical mind.

And, I’m supposed to know, to KNOW that we are all one aspect of the Universe or of God and that this separation of form, of Taylor no more, no more, no more….sends me gasping for air and wishing for and end to it all. We are supposed to know that we are still together a spiritual being having a human what? Experience? No, sometimes I cannot hear that. That equals acceptance and promises freedom. But, I want to rage and the Ego is so massive. Steps in to keep me in the shadows. I miss her physically. She is no more, no more, no more. She is a memory and part of my education is to learn to live in the present and that she is in the present and with me presently and the freedom is knowing how to love her for Her without the form.

 

I can’t touch her long hair, smell it, brush it like when she was a little girl. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. This will subside, I heard. I can already be redirected and the my Purpose is to learn this so that I can help people through it in whatever way I can and hopefully that will look like NOT having to go through it as much.

I think I’m meant to thrash and be alone for most of my time. Maybe more time with companionship during the day would be less maddening. But, I must experience it, right? Grieving is normal, right? The feeling of dying inside? Some monks observe the deceased in morgues. Just sit there in the stillness observing, looking at death. No judgement.

In all other times and places I can be trusted to move through the day and love whoever is with me. I know Taylor felt that. She put on a mask. She laughed. She was angry. She was overwhelmed, joyful, strong, proud, fearless and broken. How can You make perfection broken? Why MUST the ties that bound us, wove us into each other, her at my breast, on my hip, by my side…why must we have been that interwoven? Because I have a purpose? I had a purpose. You, Taylor were my purpose and you always will be but at this time, I must be carried. Because the thought of never seeing you again for the rest of my days comes with complete disintegration of my duties and roles in everyone else’s lives. You trumped the world, my daughter. And, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just broken.

 

I know it’s time to pour my heart and soul into my sister and my family, dogs, son, job. But, I can’t get up. Because there is a hand on my chest forcing me to witness life through the eyes of the broken. I actually understand now why she did what she did. It was wrong and it was a split decision and it would have been ok or she would have suffered forever. But, we could have fought together. I’m ashamed that I don’t want to stay or can’t think of the people I’m supposed to want to stay for. I’ll find a way so I can teach the way. I’ll find a way so I can teach the truth of the suffering and the witnessing of madness, sorrow, and a questionable need for love from others so strongly that any and every Thing in the world of form is abandonment. Shock. I’ll find a way to keep someone here or to SCREAM from the mountaintops what Borderline is. Why we need to fund the cure. She deserved to love herself like I love her. Stability in one regard seems so out of reach. So, I’ll march on. Hide in the bathrooms and cry, return with a smile and a book to read.

Tips For a Good Day During Grief

What is your definition of a “good” day after losing someone you love? Does it mean you get out of bed? Have coffee outside the house or take a walk? Can you clean or take some time for healing, reading, or put effort into your latest work or mission? Ruminating for too long is the greatest barrier to moving through grief. And, I do know that laughing or even being outside can look like a complete betrayal in the beginning because that person can't laugh so why should you? So, on the good days it's critical to create new experiences that may just be the self-care to shower. You don't have to find a reason to do anything and you don't need to justify why you can't. Getting up starts with stopping. Stop yourself for laying there and try.

1.      Leave the house immediately. No matter the temperature or weather, get up, get a shower and dress for the day. Go for a walk around the neighborhood or buy something small for your SELF. Please don’t make big plans and then discover that it’s too soon to be around many people if you’re only ready to venture out into your yard, neighborhood, or nearest park. Make your walk a ritual. Start your day or end the evening with nature and by the bilateral stimulation that allows the brain to process. 

Distract your grief while walking or in nature by using your senses. Name something you see, hear, can touch, and most importantly SMELL that you like. Opening your nasal passages and allowing for fresh air to flow through you provides the brain with something new and your brain needs new.

2.      Phone a friend. I call my lifelines (mostly whoever is available to listen) when I’m falling apart. It helps me to verbalize my pain, doubt, and guilt so that I can overcome it for a moment. But, you'll need to change the focus from you to the person you call. Show interest in his or her story. Because for everyone else, life goes on. Seems like something we do every day but we were different people before we lost our loved one. We need the balance of talking it through but not too much to ignore the part of life with the living.

3.      Read for pleasure. We’re already overloaded with self-help material like books about grief, death, suicide, and a plethora of recommendations or gifts of books to read. Instead, pick up a book that will take you on an adventure. I just finished The Count of Monte Cristo in a beautiful escape. Read something you LIKE. If you’re in the mood to learn, by all means motivate yourself but allow the brain to experience pleasure and escape without analyzing yourself.

4.      Clean. Take the opportunity to rearrange, organize, and create a space for YOU. I bought a beautiful salt lamp and small tabletop fountain for my bedside to create a space that feels good. Cleaning is almost impossible in the throes of grief (which most people can’t comprehend and we can’t focus on trying to explain it) but if you can put things away, the brain sees this organization and understands the process of solving problems. The eye movement of washing the floors on your hands and knees soothes you while you allow your mind to wander, a healthy passing of time indeed! Please stay away from organizing materials from your loved one. It never ends well.

Pump up the jams. Whether you play an instrument or simply love your playlist on good days, turn it up and get the body moving! Dance in your kitchen, relax with lofi in the tub, just sing and move and hum. If you're feeling frisky in a few minutes, don't believe that you can belt out that emotional slow jam that makes you think of your loved one. Stick to the fun, maintain the balance.

I keep it very simple these days. I am not out at restaurants with many people or in crowded places much, even on my good days. I’m not the same person I was before my daughter passed. I keep things slow and easy in these last 6 months. I only do what I can, when I can and I don’t explain to anyone.

Remember, this one point if nothing else speaks to you. Until you’re ready to live for your SELF again, live for your loved one. For me, I am Taylor-powered on the good days. I use her energy, knowing she’s with me, watching over me. I talk to my daughter out loud while I sit by the pond. I only do what I can and on the good days, I want to make her happy and proud of me for being the strong mom she always thought me to be. I want to continue to live in her honor, in a way that will give to others through empathy and compassion as I lived before I lost her. Grief has no time limit and tomorrow may be the day you’ll find me on the floor sobbing. So for just one day, I offer you a little lift and a little life and a pep in your step. One day you will live for you knowing that we’re all one, we’re all together, that they never truly leave us and that we can make them proud through the devastation that has altered us for the rest of our lives. And, it's all okay.

Despair And Madness The Constant Visitors

Despair is madness. I don’t think I’ll use either word in general conversation again. Despair approaches with a gentle, “Come on. Feel me.” It begins as I set the breakfast plates on the table. Why didn’t I cook breakfast for my kids more? Why did I stop? I know it was important to them. I can’t forgive myself. That thought is replaced by a sweet kiss from the dogs or my own Knight in Shining Armor. The subject is changed, breakfast and dishes are done and I swoop by the wall that holds her butterfly wings that lit up. She wore those wings at a circus demonstration. She was getting stronger. Her voice was heard. I know she had to feel good about herself. Why did I leave her? If I would have stayed home this time I would have seen the decline. I can control the panting at this point, restrain the wicked Madness for a time.

When I’m left alone in this paradise I choose an activity that is similar to elephant families stroking the bones of their families. Only I find letters, videos, stories, books from both of my children because one being physically present is equally ravaging my mind as I struggle to protect him from the same fate. We live far away from each other and it’s tearing me apart. But, it’s for the best and he’s at school and happy. And, I bow my head, chin touching my chest, nose lapped at the tip by the tiny waves of despair that will soon drown me. Despair doesn’t drown until you reach the demise of the body and this anguish. I sift through their school work, letters, photos, and videos and then usually, despair enters.

Despair feels like I’m laying down. I am usually laying down on whatever floor, basement, kitchen, or on the grass outside and I’m always wailing, wailing for her. In the beginning, I remember writing that my soul is wailing for her. Yes, you could potentially come to my home and find me on my side grasping my hair, tensing my legs, folding them in and then out through the sobs that wrack my body and ring the ears of my soul. I believe the bell rings for Madness.

Madness strolls in with the answer in the form of questions. But, they’re never the right questions because as I am writhing and rocking, screaming her name or begging to know why she wanted to leave me and why exactly I have to stay here among the living. Madness picks up the phone for you and conveniently dials numbers to people who will answer for me. I demand to know why I’m here. I demand to know why I am not punished for my daughter taking her life. I want to know if my son really needs me or wants me and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t because I am a bad person. I’m not compassionate anymore because I don’t have the capacity. It’s true I lived for her. I know that now. But, it was glorious. I loved every second of my life with her. Hard, hard times tore into us but we survived them together. We fought together. We loved together.

Madness pours your wine while despair takes the first sip. In a drunken stupor and now with a sick stomach, I realize that I don’t think about her really. I think about me and how my daughter being gone has affected me. I’m intoxicated thinking that it would be ok for me check out. How dare I? How could I have even mentioned it to people I call for help that I would be happy to leave them? Panic and anxiety step in. I try to explain to them that I don’t have a purpose in my life now. Who am I really? I am not the strong and resilient fighter, I’m drowning in despair.

I ask my support system of the moment (and there have been many to thank) all of these questions and I cry and I raise my voice in absolute madness. But, I’m always pushed up through the water that crushes my entire chest, leaving a cavern at least for the next day. I am pulled up by the people I talk to. The conversation changes and I ask about them and their lives and I feel better about that. The water is washing up in the tide and I’m standing on the beach and I’m still shaking and I don’t remember climbing desperately out of the water.

But, I’m on the phone and I’m laughing at one point at least. I don’t know how I got there but the madness and it’s rapacious appetite for pain diminishes into a small red cancer that sits in the back of my Self until despair returns from right around the corner, in little tiny reminders all over the house and all over my mind and all over my heart and my soul. She’s always with me. I don’t want to hear that again. We cannot be separated. And, someday my son and I will grow closer and I will grow stronger with my Knight and tribe by my side. But, just know what pain really feels like before you decide to put someone through it. And, if you know someone going through it just hug them and be nice. That’s all. Don’t ignore their loved ones. Just love them. You see, despair and madness may have dissipated for a moment, but they took my love for my Self with them. And, I’m not sure how to get that back without her or if I want to but for her, I know that I must. She believed in me. “You’re the bravest, strongest mom I know.”