Finding Words And Packaging Life

Unedited from 2016

How do you describe what it feels like, the enormity of your loss when the actual loss of your child isn’t just grief, pain, and misery?  Those are words. I can still smell her tiny little belly the first time I buried my face into her naked little tummy. I felt her giggle and I took in her scent and felt her tiny socked feet and chubby legs meet with her tiny hands in my hair to hold me closer. My baby. She loved to blow bubbles, too. She was a tiny package who needed so much care and gave it back in shooting stars…I look to the sky for my breath sometimes and wonder at the sheer size of the Universe and where she could be for that moment,

I close my eyes and I feel her next to me under the covers with her brother, usually after a struggle for “room.” We read every night, usually 3 books and sometimes the same ones and that, no one can take away from me. I have that but I can’t explain that as loss because it wasn’t for nothing. It was for life and that is what we shared. But, it still races through my mind when someone even hints that I should be okay by now.

How do you describe her feel? Soft cheeks that I kissed, tall forehead too…The sprints across the house to catch her on her way to work for a hug. I feel her neck. I feel her hold me. What should I say to you that will allow those personal and sacred moments be translated into words that I don’t even care to put together to form a sentence.

I have since been informed that Taylor used to look through my clothes while I was gone, the same as I do now. They’re folded or hung with mine but she liked me, she really did. She was so funny sitting on the couch when I walked through, ready and on time for work or a meeting. She’s say, “Oh, mom.” Of course I would ask what was wrong with what I was wearing. Sometimes, it was obvious and sometimes she’d say, “If you can’t figure it out, I’m not telling you.” I don’t know how many times I grabbed my tummy to laugh at her little and constant quips.

The truth is that some days are good. And, some days I feel like I’m walking around the house looking for the trash she left in the living room and to see if she left for work, yet (late and looking for her keys). Some days, as our clothes mingle I feel that intimacy of putting makeup on together or looking at her brush that still has her hair in it. It’s going through cabinets and finding the kids’ thermometer and taking care of them when they were sick. They needed me. How do you explain that you’re no longer hearing your name…needed. She needed me and I wander around reading a book or cleaning or waiting.

As I write this, I realize that I miss my son at school as much as I miss my entire family and our lifestyle of swimming, playing, reading, listening to loud music, taking trips, laughing, arguing, so very bonded with close friends and other kids we babysat or who just hung out….they grow up. She was a package deal, you know. She  had it all; a sharp wit, an abundance of compassion and fight for what’s right, and a laugh that involved a slapped knee, thrown back head, wide open laughter, and a hand on her belly, too.

Ah, she had a full 22 years. In her physical world she was fiercely independent and acted with integrity, always knowing what the right thing to do is…she wouldn’t even let me shortcut. She was so brave and strong and oddly enough that’s what she’s always said about me. How do you explain that? I don’t want to be brave and strong and just because I’m not crumbling at your feet doesn’t mean I’m not screaming inside or laughing at one of our private jokes. I read to her, bathed her, hauled her brother, friends and her everywhere and loved and love her with the same fire she chose to extinguish in herself, asking me in her farewell note to “Go do what you love like I aspired to do.” Well, I love you Taylor and your brother. I modeled my advocacy work for you and you followed. I laughed and loved and you loved and laughed and struggled. I am most floored now when I look back at old letters, papers, reminders of her struggles. And, I could not save her and she made her choice. I can’t explain everything that I go through without her. I can only hold onto the memories and ride these waves, float on, drown a little, and lay in the sand waiting to take a breath before I have to face the world again and explain myself.

The Truth And Death

Frantically, I pushed and pulled soggy and slippery logs around the flow of water cascading past the tiny fencing that keeps our little pond safe. The fence acts as a barrier but there was too much rain, too much water last night as I discovered this early morning. Desperately, I clinged to long and awkward logs and tried to avoid the briars that cut into my legs. I shed my sandals, not knowing the mess, the slippery mud I was walking into. The raging storm and torrential rains the night before filled the land around us, the tiny creeks rushed on and here at the pond I couldn’t stop the overflow. We travel the tiny bridge, now halfway covered in water to a small trail we made just the day before. The bridge lies over another tiny creek very much alive this morning. The trail takes us past the swampy area of logs and grasses, home to a plethora of bugs, birds landing for a nice fish, turtles and smaller fish that swim close enough to grab an insect landing on the water. This marshy area is one of my favorite and completely under water.

I ignored the swamp, gone for now and went back to my task, this time pulling a dolly, collecting rocks, walking through spider webs, covered in mud just the way I like it. The dolly has a box strapped to the bottom for me to pull my rocks to gardens and this time to the waterfall. Make it stop. I want it to stop. I placed the rocks strategically and moved the smaller pieces of wood. Leaks sprang and water found its way the same as it had before I started. I worked harder, calm and determined to save my pond that was, in truth, not in any sort of danger. Why wasn’t I thinking of the natural order of things? I thought of a blog I had written a few years ago entitled Water Finds A Way, one that I’m sure I discarded at some point and remembered that I wasn’t stopping a thing. In fact, I was only missing out on the beauty.

I asked Taylor from her heaven to guide me to some rocks that I could carry with my dolly and end this maddening flow. Somehow it works every time that I find what I’m looking for and I held a new passion that if I moved these puzzle pieces from Mother Nature herself, the water would stop leaving the pond, leaving me. The pond would be full, damn the swamp. Rocks replaced sticks that replaced heavy logs and nothing was working out. It was a maddening puzzle with three dead fish staring at me as if to relay the message that I am not in control in this environment.

The little waterfall dumped over into a small gully about 3 feet below and joined happily with the fast-paced stream produced in these times, one of many streams, gullies, and natural ponds that appear, clean and life-giving. Even on top of the trails in the woods, small ponds at least 6 feet round can be found and are found by the dogs. The three fish, unlucky to have been swept around my work site were not lucky and died on the branches that laid matter-of factly at the top of the waterfall. That’s the truth of nature and for me, there was no sadness, no empathy as I’ve learned to watch the birds, turtles, raccoons, or whatever manner of wildlife that will sustain itself on the fish. I couldn’t stop the truth.

I stopped suddenly and sat upright. I observed my surroundings. I love the sound of waterfalls. I bought two of them after Taylor passed over.  I looked at the pond, full and more clear than usual, glistening in the soft light of morning. Standing slowly in the muck I walked back to the house, observing the absurdity of the covered bridge and the marsh that must and will return to a drier environment in a day or so.  My shoulder tickled with the leftover spider web I walked through. I worked hard and stopped nothing. I gathered my shoes, dolly, and put my tools away. I ended the mission with a clear mind, no resistance, only acceptance. Lesson learned.

What did the Zen card say yesterday, the one that held the word Truth on one side, the one that I carried with me into my bedroom only for a sad but brief moment, stifled at the law of nature, of the unjust, the law that was written? I couldn’t stop the water. I shouldn’t stop the water. That was the lesson? The truth is that everything is in order and I am not supposed to try to stop it because the bridge will be passable, the bullfrogs will sing, the dragonflies will mate and the pond will overflow until it returns to its order. The birds will land again and the bullfrogs will hide out in their grasses.

The card reads:

What Is, Is.

What IS Not, Is Not.

No Amount Of

WISHING Or

Wanting Can Change

That Simple Fact.

I didn’t hang my head as I sat to record the happenings of a few minutes ago. Taylor, my daughter, is gone from this physical world. I was reminded yesterday that on my path and only in the future will I be able to heal and draw her strength to live in her honor, to give in her absence all of the light and love and laughter that she gave. The truth is that now, I’ll grieve and forever I’ll grieve but I cannot be broken in her divine presence. I can’t stop the truth, I can’t stop the water from flowing or the tears I’ll certainly shed for the rest of my life in my hunger and desperation in missing her.

Accepting the Truth doesn’t mean I must not mourn. For me, though, I can learn in time to accept just the simple fact that in the physical form, she’s not coming back. I can learn to embrace life on other terms and I can live with sadness and despair that will never escape but dissipate as I embrace my Self living my life in service to others as she did and so much emulated in me. I’m sure the water is still flowing out of the pond, maybe cleaning up a bit, soaking the ground of the marsh and bringing new life. I think I’ll put my boots on this time and watch the flow, listen to the waterfall, think of my daughter and what she may be doing today, who she may be helping from her heaven. I’ll sit quietly and reflect, walk the trails and rediscover the water flowing through them while the dogs crash into the small ponds and wander up the rock beds in the cool rushing streams. The truth about death is that you can’t change the past any more than you can change the flow of water, the rain, or the natural order of things. The only change we can make is how we see those waterfalls.

She Is Bliss

She is BLISS.

She is the warmth of the sun, caressing my face with her soft hands.

I can see her sweet smile and gentle soul looking at me with my eyes closed.

She is the quiet of the moon and stars, the black of night in the infinite sky.

She floats and dances in her bliss, welcome to come and go into and away from galaxies and Earth.

She is the dance in the butterfly and the sway in the branches.

She is the intangible love I’ve found in nature for my entire life.

My bliss is She.

A deer with tender and trepid footsteps, a frog leaping into a pond.

Baby piglets, puppies, her own dogs that receive my love with and for her and for me.

She is love.

How wondrous to be free from this earthbound strapping and trapping of the sensitive mind, the delicate flower of innocence that she is has been revealed and she is free from this place.

She smiles now where there was angst.

She touches with delicacy the lost or hurting.

She soars in and out of the dimensions.

She suffers no more but laughs out loud no more. I can’t hold her. I can’t touch her or help her or talk to her or call her.

She is with me and yet, I am unaware.

There is a cruelty in this pain, an unrecognized beauty in her freedom.

The reconciliation came for her when she broke free of her cocoon that appeared to the human to be death.

She found her beauty, her soul, her true spirit. She flies high in bliss and touches down with no fear, no insecurity, no confusion, no pain…no pain…no pain.

How selfish is the physical, the mother, the living on earth after she has transcended and will continue to transcend into more and more BLISS?

The human experience is unavoidable. The long nights of lying in the fetal position, sobbing with uncontrollable spasms as the physical bodies who love her anguish and physiologically change to adapt to this world without her and to her new and complete form cannot be avoided.

Methods are introduced to ease the pain and aid in the minute understanding or acceptance or even the fragment of joy for her that she no longer suffers here but soars into the everything that is Universe, that is God, that is her true form, that is spirit. But, they are fleeting as the pain drowns me in tidal waves, leaves me choking, and allows me to breathe for a few days after it subsides.

The anguish of desire to tear apart and dismantle the physical from the soul is maddening. My hands want to grip my chest, tear it apart to open the green and red and indigo, to open to feel her in her new form. See her with my heart. See her with my heart. My broken and decimated heart. The one thing that could free me is the only thing keeping me away from her.

Foreign, unable to cope, much less morph into an enlightened human this feeling of ripping at the chest to see her with the heart, not the eyes. The panic that ensues day after day of desperate searching for a way to communicate through the pain.

Jealousy, envy, desire, desperation take the place of the bond we shared. That was my daughter. I made her. She and I were entwined and now she is here and everywhere and I can’t reach her. My joy comes from others who can and do reach her or the people she reaches. I feel defeated. Left out.

She is BLISS. Love her. Trust her. Know her in her new form. Learn patience and feel abundance with the love of the people present in life who need each other now more than ever.

The constant struggle between being surrounded by her love and struggling to love her as the only way I know is constant because I cannot love her in the physical and I cannot escape the torturous pain in me. I don’t know how.

I don’t know how.

My eyes strain as I look too hard, try too hard, am ungrateful, tearing the world apart seeking her, raging, screaming, playing little reels of tape that allow me to see myself with her instead of playing out my sacred contract. I want to remember all of her and I wonder if my memories are just suspended or are they leaving me?

I search for her and she is BLISS. I try to remind myself that she is BLISS. Be joyous and thankful and loving. Be kind and understanding and patient. All while writhing and screaming inside the heart that can and should and one day must open to see her in her new form. I can’t and I must.

She is BLISS

She is BLISS

She is EVERYTHING

She is EVERYWHERE

She is HERE

She is ME

I am HER.

I fall exhausted, the physical world being only a necessity to see through my contract with my sisters and brothers of this dimension, my son, my love, my family. I crawl on my knees through the days and nights, finding scraps of happiness, proof in her love. She cradles me as I cry.

I still feel her growing inside me, holding her as a newborn, suckling at my breast. I see her walking, talking, observing, struggling, hurting, helping, loving. I don’t have another way to view her as I beg on my hands and knees for mercy, for a glimpse of her from my heart….tear it from my chest and replace it with love and understanding. Be happy for her, show her the unconditional love I promised.

She is BLISS. Love her in her BLISS.

  

The Urn Sits Atop The Shelf

The urn sits atop the bookshelf. That’s a sentence, isn’t it? The urn…I’ve heard of them, seen them in movies. It took a few months for me to have my daughter’s ashes, or rather my daughter in her earth form to be in the same room with me. They’re here, now. She’s here now. They burned her and I don’t dare think of that too deeply. I did ask the funeral home if it was just her or her clothes or the casket included in that cremation. But, her tiny body is gone, all of her and I can’t quite grasp what it means.

I pressed the urn to my stomach with both hands, firmly into my stomach, concave. Instinctively, I wanted to shove her back into my womb in her beginning form as my baby, start all over. Maybe there would be a different result. I stared at it for a while. The lid on the bottom, fell off and luckily there is a bag inside with her ashes. Is it her? Can I acknowledge that she has been turned into dust? Does it matter? She’s not coming back. The rational is drowned by the screams in my head, the soul cry. I didn’t feel anything by touching the urn or by placing my fingers inside. There were traces of dust and I touched them and rubbed them on my neck. I want to touch them finally. I want to strip all of my clothes off and all of my Self naked on the floor. I want to scream and rub her ashes all over me. I want to burst into flames with the pain and the utter disillusionment of it all. I want to feel her if only her burned beyond the human form, feel her on me, with me. I’m desperate. Yet, I hold it together and stare at this fancy jar with a faulty lid and wait for magic. There is no magic.

In fact, the urn rests upon a shelf awaiting the journey to the ocean. Some of her ashes will be placed inside rings and necklaces and maybe a few tattoos. And, some will play a part in our ceremony to return her to her love, her peace, her home, her heaven in the ocean. Someone mentioned that fish will eat the ashes. After debating whether or not to scrap the whole idea that second, her friend reminded me that if the fish eat the ashes and other fish eat those fish the cycle of life continues and she’ll be in the ocean forever. So, that’s that.  Twelve of us are driving to the ocean for our first memorial, intimate, secluded, and necessary to honor my daughter. The screams, tears, and pain will flow, grow, subside in our week on the very beach she’s loved and trusted, needed really for so many years. We will laugh, hold each other, and send her off with a ride on a dolphin cruise filled with her music, all scattering tiny ashes of her into the water with a funny quote or perhaps a memory. We must heal and we must endure and we must show her that we will go on.

I don’t know what I was thinking when I planned this trip. She already made the deposit on our town home as she planned to return just four months after she took her life. I think of that a lot…just four months, Taylor. You could have waited four months and you would have some relief. I beg, still. I believe I always will. But, the trip has to happen. We need to go, her close friends, our little family and I. The task seems so great now that there are just 24 hours until departure. The burden seems so much to bear but I can’t think of that. I never think of her and connect it with anything other than honoring and loving her. I will love her and honor her with our little tribe. The tears flowed all day as I sobbed on the floor sorting through her tiny summer clothes and tiny bikinis. 

And, the urn sits atop the shelf. And, I will pack with a mournful and defeated heart. In my mind I know this trip will change us, allow for us to grow. But, for now the urn sits atop the shelf.

Soul Contract And The Sea

Unedited 4/2016

I stood with warm feet and toes caressing, exploring the warm sand. Mesmerized by the tide far, far into the distance I wondered at the distance I would travel into the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles from my home, to feel the sea caress my shoulders and chest to envelope me. As is and always shall be, my heart and mind immediately followed the invisible, magical chord to Taylor, my daughter back home in the United States and I used my phone to photograph and video my first experience of this African paradise in Tanzania. She sought the peace of the beach, warmth of the sun, writing in the sand, feeling the hot sun and cool water, seeking shells, crabs, dolphins, life of the sea, too.

I knew she’d love Africa, too like I did. I dreamed of keeping my line of communication open with her while I was there to express my love for her and this place on earth in which she could find joy, escape, and perspective to change her life, learn of this beautiful culture and its magic. I wanted her to be happy. I also wanted her to have the independence in being home with more responsibility and freedom to think about the past few weeks that lead to her decision to leave this reality. She suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder, the diagnosis that seemed like a death sentence. After 22 years of struggle I held on to hope, to her finally accepting  the help and self-love she deserved.  Oh, I ached for her to have had that joy.

But, please allow me to step back for a moment. I want you to know the whole story, of joy and pain and of the soul contract between my daughter and me. Read with an open mind and find the magic, the surrender and her and my strength in honoring of our soul contract. The truth that something big was to happen revealed itself a few months before my departure to Africa but I was unaware. Having traveled to Africa in 2014 with fever in my heart and determination in my soul to be in the presence of Africans and the wildlife there, to do my part, to learn, to fall in love allowed for the trip of a lifetime.

But, this time something seemed wrong. I thought it was anxiety about leaving for so long (it was planned for 5 weeks), leaving my family to care for what I should have been, deserting them in some way.  I wasn’t sure where the fear or anxiety originated but it dissipated completely just days before I left for Tanzania on January 7^th, 2016 and allowed me as I know it now to accept what  my soul  already knew. I would be accepting and honoring the contract I made with my daughter.

Of course, I had no idea that this trip would be fateful and fraught with that something being amiss.  I felt lonely this time. Something was wrong and I couldn’t place it, define it. So many small mishaps and troubles followed me from the beginning.  I had writer’s block for a project I began (and haven’t finished). A great deal of money was stolen from me more than once and in more than one way. I didn’t experience the joy and sadness, relief and awe at the elephant orphanage I returned to after almost 2 years of dreaming to see the elephants grow and eventually become free. In fact, as my eyes and soul were fixated on a male calf that soon died after I left. I knew that truth when I saw him and thought of almost nothing else. My laptop crashed. A taxi driver got lost while friends and I traveled to an important meeting, the only meeting I would have with dear friends I bonded with on social media. And, then he overcharged me. My camera began malfunctioning. I planned to canoe on the Lower Zambezi and I just didn’t feel like it. Seeing the elephants was joyful but not the same. I kept asking myself what was wrong. 

Contact with home was spotty. I didn’t talk to my daughter or son nearly enough. I was sad during what would end up being the last week I was on the continent. It was cold and rainy on safaris and once the truck became stuck. I didn’t feel exuberance. I became distraught when I learned about the life of hippos and the eventual demise of hippos cast out of groups. After joining 2 nighttime game drives and witnessing the animals shocked and upset by the spotlights shined in their faces I stopped going. Twice I decided not to go on safari at all. I spent one of my final days on safari simply sobbing. I didn’t feel useful, lovable or valuable, Now, I know that my daughter was suffering on the same day and I simply absorbed her pain from across the planet. My camera finally broke in the last days. When I received the call that my daughter transitioned, I sat on the bank of the Luangwa River. I realized then that during the last few months the earth was trembling.

I return to my visit on the beach during the beginning of my trip. I reveled in the peace of a sparsely inhabited beach and walked during low tide far, far into the shallow ocean. As I knelt and allowed the ocean to wash over me and rock me, I turned my face to the sun to cleanse my spirit. I wanted for Taylor to feel what I felt and yet, I knew that day would never come. It was an eerie existence, both healing and cautious. I don’t know how I knew. My soul knew. I was signing my contract, fulfilling my role as her earth mother and although my soul cries now to fight this truth, I let her go that day to make her choice. Although Taylor was proud of me as she wrote in her farewell message to me, and who she determined was the closest person to her, I didn’t know she would not follow me into the peace I desperately wanted for her.

The shock I felt upon learning of her passing lasted for over a month and so did the guilt and questions, the self-blame and desperation. I’m her mom. Those feelings may not permeate me forever but they will still surface as the tide ebbs and flows, a natural and instinctual aspect of my life. She refused help but I wanted to build her trust in me to seek help together with me upon my return. I had it all worked out. Until I didn’t.

It is now 10 and something weeks and the most extraordinary realizations manifested for me in two consecutive days. I was not meant to be at home that fateful night that she left the physical world.  I would have changed and been damaged irreparably. I realize that now and that there’s nothing I could have done to fix her, even after trying for 22 years, after spending the most beautiful days and years of my life giving my children the most beautiful love, life, laughter, and play possible. I was not supposed to bear witness to her parting from me.

After that realization and the very next day. Cranial Sacral Therapy and Reiki  have been the most healing experiences for me. Simply relaxing in a candle-lit room filled with aromatherapy, soothing music and a waterfall, nestled under warm blankets, mind and heart wide open and free of distractions encourages us to connect with the Self, and for me with her. I laid comfortably and immediately relaxed. I found myself visualizing myself floating in the Indian Ocean. But, this time Taylor held me, buoyant and comforted. As she held me, I felt tears touch my cheeks. The pain and sorrow, the longing, desperate in the realization that her body is not with me, never to hear her laugh again dissipated as quickly as it came. I saw her in her new form, or I should say I felt her. I heard her laugh, joke, and felt her love and healing. I saw her as she has become. She is love. The suffering mirrors mountain of love I have for her and I finally understood that suffering and love are symbiotic. I embraced her, accepted her love and who she has become in the universe. I felt pride in the magnitude and latitude of her touch that reaches so many people still here, as was her purpose both in the physical and spiritual.

My contract, my agreement with her was to let her go, set her free, honor that choice that cuts deeply. I, the mother who stands alone without her in the physical accepted her decision to go while I floated, meditated, felt the warmth and peace of the ocean while in Africa. Brokenhearted and contracting with grief, I stand strong still. No waves will break me. She holds me. She told me before that I’m the bravest and strongest person she knows. I haven’t felt very brave or strong. My soul honors her. That must not dissipate.

The way she left us, the pain she experienced, the lifelong suffering she endured haunts me. I know now, hanging my head still that I couldn’t save her. Taylor showed me that I did everything and more. She said in her last message, “You’re the best mom you could have been.”  She’s touching lives now and I will go to that place in my heart as I do every day to feel her within me as others do.

I will learn to love her in her blissful new state of being, joyful, pain free, able to serve a greater purpose. One day at a time I will try. And, one day….as time travels slowly in the depths of despair….I will speak soundly, clearly, respectfully, and with power for families, the suffering, the animals, in honor of Taylor with tears streaming down my face or not, beaming with pride that I am with my twin soul with whom I’ll be connected for eternity.

Suvivor guilt after suicide

This piece was written to discuss my healing process in dealing with the guilt so many of Taylor's friends and family members feel because we want so desperately to have her back, to have been able to influence the impossible. We're begging and groping. I feel the guilt that only time and possibly my CPT Therapy may be able to help. It is for PTSD and I recommend it. Here is my personal story of guilt. Guilt is a manufactured and real emotion, expected but not necessary. In my case, I must push through. I do not edit my writing. I encourage you to write, paint, seek guidance, love, meditation, the outdoors in order to heal. This is also very personal and nothing is withheld. I feel that if I share it with you, maybe it can help someone or allow someone to relate.

I am only able to write one way…and that is the cathartic and creation that comes from addressing and manifesting thoughts and emotions that usually end with clarification and understanding. In this case, I am sure that my guilt and shame will not disappear or maybe even dissipate. But, my feelings are often left out while my thoughts take over to protect…or sabotage.

So, why do I feel Taylor took her life? My thought is that she suffered everyday. My thought is that she wanted to and almost obsessed about it. She wanted it but didn’t, in a way. My feelings are more tricky, though. When I found out I was pregnant and even into bedrest while I laid there and watched her bottom move against my hand while I touched my growing stomach, I was in deep, deep love. When she was born I felt a love and protectiveness that grew. I felt helpless while she cried as a baby, helpless and heartbroken that I could not calm her as she cried as a child, feeling so overwhelmed with each day. I couldn’t help her be comfortable in a general education classroom. I couldn’t help her feel okay about herself being in a school for kids with some type of emotional or mental disability. I feel sorry for her and embarrassed FOR her, not because of her. 

I watched her grow and separate from me as the hatred for me grew from her but her need for me was greater. I felt like she should have had a graduation just like other kids. I felt like she should have been more mature than hanging out with younger kids. I felt bad, so bad that she couldn’t handle college classrooms.

I felt like she needed professional help through every single year, every week, every day…..every hard moment. I felt her pain and after fighting back with her abusive jibes at me, I learned that her pain and regret was worse than the names she called me. I learned that it was her and I didn’t feel like I was the many names she called me. I didn’t internalize her life or her fears or pain and blame myself during that time. I didn’t feel guilty at all because I made appointment after appointment with doctors and therapists. After countless tests and meetings, countless years I just couldn’t convince her to go anymore. Who could blame her? The medicine they gave her didn’t work. The diagnoses were strewn all over the place. I feel guilty about not knowing what she suffered from even though I think that I could not see inside her mind and know that there was no way for me to know the extent. I don’t feel like I did anything wrong when she tried in December and I asked her boyfriend to stop the abuse. I felt helpless because she didn’t want me around then at all and even spent most of Christmas with someone else. I know she didn’t mean to show me that much hatred and I know for a fact that she did and does love me more than anyone on the planet. I was the closest to her and didn’t see her pain. She couldn’t show me.

I wanted that time in Africa and I was hell bent on going. I knew that if I left her for 5 weeks, I could gently nudge her along into a better relationship with me. I felt that if I were separate and away from the house, she could and would take on more responsibility, maybe miss me, be proud of me, and bond with me better without the stress and questions and my own desire to get her real help in the form of DBT Training. Now, I feel guilty for going. I thought she could handle it. I felt like she’d be okay and we could really connect. I feel guilty for not reading the book, “I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me” about her disorder before I left and then I would have canceled the trip or talked to her. I’m almost positive she would have denied me the time to devote to herself. She was too obsessed with her boyfriend’s abuse. She needed it, craved it. I saw that and wanted to help her stop. But, even after she left the hospital she ignored the diagnosis, never talked to me about it, didn’t want help. I feel like if I would have been able to talk to her before she left me forever, she would have listened to just me telling her that I need her and love her and that I would die inside without her. I don’t think I told her that because she was so angry and I do not feel bad about that because she just refused. There was nothing I could do. But, if I were home at least I could say I was here. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I hadn’t seen her for 3 weeks and when they took her lifeless body away, I wasn’t there to hold her in my arms and say goodbye. On January 6, 2016 I hugged her goodbye. She had a few tears and told me she would miss me. I immediately responded that I would cancel the entire trip in a flat second if she wanted me to stay. She made it clear that she was proud of me and wanted me to go. The next time I saw my daughter she was lying in a casket, cold, gone….they didn’t even do a good job making her look like she was.

I feel like she took her life to get away from her boyfriend’s constant abuse, breaking up with her, calling her a whore, accusing her of cheating. If I would have read the book maybe he would have understood. I feel like she was just done with the ups and downs of it all. I feel like she did it on impulse but if she did, she put a lot of effort into making it work. There was no turning back. My worst fear is realized as I sit here and recognize that she is not here because of me.

There is no way to fight for the life of your child so fiercely, so protectively, so intimately, and with so much love without feeling that same responsibility when she decided to go. It doesn’t even make sense for me to THINK, “Oh, well. I tried everything I could.” I don’t feel like that either.

No one told me that she posted such horrid statuses on Facebook. No one told me that 2 days before she was looking for drugs (which she has never touched) to end it all. I feel like it was the fault of everyone involved for not telling me anything just because they didn’t want to ruin my good time in Africa. I felt like something was wrong the entire trip and I couldn’t make it work out in my mind. She and I tried to talk once in a while but she didn’t reply nearly as often when I called or texted and each time she messaged me to find out if I was around, I would reply multiple times to call me, write to me, “I’m here. I’m here, Taylor. Write to me. Call me. I’m here….” Then, nothing.

I feel like I was stuck the night it happened. It was morning where I was, 9 hours ahead. It was 4:30am, the sun was rising. She called, I tried to answer and could hear only silence. I tried to go outside my cabin and call back. No answer. She canceled the calls. Or the person who picked up her phone did when it was too late. I feel like I could have talked her out of it and because I was there and so far away, I couldn’t.

I feel like she didn’t want to suffer, anymore. I feel like she was overwhelmed. I feel like she ingrained into her mind that it wasn’t worth living just one more day….I feel like she avoided everyone close who would have talked her out of it. I feel like she would have gotten over the relationship drama. I feel like I would not have been able to help her or talk to her, even though in my mind I know I would have tried. I feel like she may have suffered for the rest of her life and didn’t want to. I feel like I didn’t know enough to help and I couldn’t anyway.

I feel confused and I feel like she’s not suffering. I feel like dying inside wanting her to walk in the door and I feel like I’ll never get the closet she was found in out of my mind. I feel like I can’t go on and don’t want to but I don’t have a choice.

I feel like she did it because she separated herself from the people she loved so abruptly. I feel like no matter what I say or do, think or feel…she’s not physically sitting beside me so there’s no point to going over and over this in my mind. I feel like the role I played in her life was HUGE. She followed me into animal advocacy. She followed my mannerisms, she looked like me, she emulated me, she needed me, I needed her. I feel like I’ll never accept that I’m not at least partly to blame for her being gone, gone forever. It just doesn’t make sense to me to spend an entire lifetime working to help her have a good day only to be gone away from her on the only day that mattered, the day she needed to hear me tell her that she was worth everything to me, to her dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, everyone.

I don’t dwell on the what ifs like I used to just weeks ago. I don’t do it because she’s not here. The end result is more pain, blame, questions, pain…. She’s not here….I do dwell on her hanging there and stepping off that chair making the final decision that she wasn’t worth taking another breath. I do dwell on her tiny body being gone and how much love we all gave to her through the years. I do feel like going with her sometimes because then I would get to see her, although it’s fleeting and only when I’m in severe distress, never to be done.

Other areas of my life are either completely affected or not at all. I don’t feel like a failure by working a less demanding, simple and enjoyable job. I feel safe in my home and in my body like I won’t hurt myself or anyone else. I feel like I can’t control what happened but I can control myself when I need to but still worry if I’m doing everything I can to take the pain away….she’s my every thought at every moment. I feel like I can’t part with her things and I’m very afraid of moving out of here and moving her room. It won’t be hers anymore. It won’t be a familiar place where she’s walked, made messes, yelled, “Mom!” several times a day.

I feel like my self-esteem is intact. I don’t feel like a bad mother but I do feel the strong urge to mother. I don’t feel bad about myself but I do feel like my son maybe doesn’t need me so much so I’m not sure who I am, anymore. I don’t have the everyday struggle with her, now it’s with me. Now, I feel like I want to get better. I want to feel less pain but feel it enough to be healthy. I feel like I want to tell her story. I feel like I want to honor her. I feel sad and lost and that I need to redefine myself. I think that will be harder than I imagine as I face this world without the girl I nursed, held in my arms until the very last time I saw her.

I know she’s around me and with me. I trust her to show me how to love her for the 8,000 days she was with me. I am patient with trying to remember them but I yearn to feel her face and her hair and remember every moment. I am terrified of losing that connection, which I know can never be lost. I also fear that I can’t feel her spirit enough or that someday she’ll be gone or that it will simply never be enough. I’m so terribly frightened that as more time goes by, I’ll start to think about what they did to her body after they took her, the details, the things my mind is not ready for. I am afraid that every birthday, holiday, wedding, new baby will forever be a painful reminder instead of being in the moment. I’m afraid I’m forever changed and can’t be the light and have the dance and the celebration of life without feeling that she should be with me, seeing the spring flowers. I’m afraid I’ll go the beach and forever miss her finding seashells in the sand just to show me. I’m afraid of the nightmare that I simply do not want, did not ask for, and could have possibly stopped. 

She took my breath away when she was born. They laid her on my stomach and I spoke to her as she slept. As soon as I spoke, she recognized my voice and started to cry. That moment defined me. The moment I heard the words that she was gone while I was thousands of miles from home, from help, from control to help her or stop her defined me. It takes over the good times and good days. I don’t feel like I’ll ever forgive myself no matter what I’m told, how I’m consoled, or what I learn. She was and is my twin soul. Take the guilt, take the shame of my wanting to help anyone other than her, my passion to save animals instead of saving her and compare it my couch next to me as I sit here and write. She’s not here. She never will be again. Her little body, so full of laughter, compassion, rage, anger, fighting for herself, full of freedom and exploration…..all gone. I am her and she is me. We died together that night at 8:30pm on February 2, 2016. And, yes. It’s my fault.

This quote hung on our refrigerator for a very long time. I decided to take it down and replace it with something new. I never knew how much it impacted Taylor. She asked me to put it back up because she loved it. Although there is a question as to the author, it is credited to Mother Theresa.