I typically sit in my house during the day by myself, with no TV on or a radio playing in the background. It is just quiet (other than my puppy and kitty playing). But today I decided to open of Windows Media Center and play some of my songs. Then I go to thinking about Natalie Grant's song. My cousin Tracey had sent me her CD Awaken about two months after Mari had died and the song "Held" struck me right to the heart. These are the words, and to hear the song is even more powerful. I just thought I would like to share these words with you. The parts in [ ] I changed to fit what our situation was. Please let me know what you think of these words and if they had any effect on you like they did me.

Held

Two [weeks] is too little
They let [her] go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from [her] mother
While she prays, is appalling

Who told us we’d be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
We’re asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it’s unfair

CHORUS
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We’d be held

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

CHORUS
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We’d be held

If hope is born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior

CHORUS
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We’d be held

How am I supposed to live my life without her?

How am I supposed to live my life without her? How am I supposed to? I sit here in complete confusion as to how I am supposed to do this. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. I don’t understand. I just simply don’t understand. Mari is gone and yet I am still here. Mari is gone and yet I am just supposed to move on with my life. But Mari is gone. There is not an instruction manual on how to move on with your life once your one and only child is gone from it. I just don’t know how. I wish there was just some tried and true method that would just help you to get over your grief and despair but there isn’t. There is absolutely nothing else on the face of the planet, in this world, that can make this easier.

Time. Is time what is supposed to help me to heal? I seriously doubt it. Time has done nothing for me and I am sure it will continue to do nothing for me in the future. All time is doing is just having the days pass by. I guess you could say time is a stair case. It is a stair case that I climb each and every day. Sometimes the stairs are incredibly steep and narrow, and incredibly hard to climb. Whereas other days, the stairs are incredibly wide and almost flat. The steep and narrow stair days are the day I just don’t know how I am supposed to get through. They are the incredibly hard days or hard times, like what I am going through tonight just trying to go to sleep at 3 in the morning. The wide and flat days are my ok days. Those are the days I can put a smile on my face and not cry. Those are the days I am not thinking about Mari and how much I am missing her all the time. This stair case I am on is a climb I will be on until I die one day and the top of the stair is that day when I have finally reached the top where Mari is waiting for me at the very last stair. She is waiting there for me with open arms. But until that day I am incredibly sad.

It seems like almost every night I am thinking of my beautiful baby girl. Here lately it has been about her last few days on this earth, or the wake and/or the funeral. I just remember looking back at her funeral and realizing that I would never be able to see my little girl again. She is just gone. Yet I am still here to remember her while I am on this earth. How is this possible? It was just not supposed to happen this way. The order is so out of whack. No one is going to ever help me to understand why Mari was taken from me. NO ONE!!! It will never make sense. We try to make sense of loss like this, we as human beings, but there is nothing that makes sense when a mother (or a father) loses a child this early in life, or for that matter, the child dying before the parent does. NOTHING!!!

I sit here almost every night just wishing this was all a bad dream and that tomorrow morning I will be waking up and I will hear her sweet little voice singing in the monitor to wake me up like she had done for so many years. I miss that sweet little voice more than I ever thought humanly possible.

Tonight I sit here in my creative writing nonfiction class and I am having such a hard time concentrating. I just wish I had stayed home tonight instead of coming to class. I feel bad because I was not as prepared as I would normally have been. I had only fully read one of the two stories. I had only ready about the first third of the second story and about the last third. I briefly skimmed through the middle section. I felt totally unprepared when it came to the quiz tonight. He asked three questions from each story. I had the first three down without a problem because I had fully read the story. But that second one is what really had gotten me. The first question I got without a problem only because I felt fortunate enough that right before the quiz I had just flipped the middle part of the story and had read that part. But the second question, I just simply did not know. I didn’t know because I had not read that part. The third and final question I somewhat remember and I was glad I could get five out of the six correct. He only requires 5 correct questions when he asks these to get a 100%. I am just grateful for that.

In our class we are also supposed to workshop two students papers each week. Well, this week we were workshopping two of the professors papers. I felt terrible because I had not read his papers either. I sat here reading one of his essays but had not gotten to the other. When it came time to critique, of course the one I had not read yet is the one we were workshopping first. I was given grief over this but I said, “At least I did lie and say something about it when I had not read it.” I think being honest is more important than just worrying about saying something.

I am so glad this semester is almost over. I need it to be over. I have only class tomorrow, and then Monday and Wednesday of next week for my American Lit II class and my biology class, and then I only have one class left of creative writing after tonight. Then the following week is finals but I only have a final in American Lit class. I am just so glad this semester is basically done.

I miss Mari so much today. I'm not even sure why.

I talked with an old family friend I have known since I was probably about 4 or 5 years old today. She lost a son a couple of years ago so she knows what it is like to lose a child. She is a good person to talk to.

For some reason I keep thinking back to the Saturday, the day after her cerebral hemorage and cardiac arrest, and when the PICU attending told us it was the worst CT scan she had ever seen. How that day it felt like my world had fall out from under neath me. The nurse was a sweetheart that day. She asked if I wanted to lay beside Mari. I said yes. So she moved her over and I went to sleep beside her. That was the very last time I ever got to do that. I just keep thinking about this moment. How special it was to me and just how much I miss her.

We went to Midevil Times last night. It was so much fun. I just keep thinking how much Mari would have loved it and yet she will never be able to see it.

I talked to my grief counselor this past week about whether I should write on this website everyday. I have not been writing everyday because I did not want to sound redundant. She said that what will happen over time is my grief will change as will what I write in here. It will be like all of you are growing with my through my grief. I hope by me posting everyday it will help you to understand me better.

I love you Mari and I miss you so much.
Love Mommy

A friend of mine told me she comes to this website everyday to see what I have posted and is disappointed when there isn't anything. I am going to try something new. I want to try to post at least one thing a day just to let you all know how I am doing. Sometimes I will just tell you how my day went and other times I will write out something like I usually post. I hope everyone will like this. Please keep your comments coming as I love to hear feedback from those who care about me, Mari and Keith. We love all of you.

Today was both a good day and a hard day for me. Keith and I went to Midevil Times. I just kept thinking how much fun Mari would have had if she were still here. She would have loved to see the live horses, the hawk flying around the area, and the different things the knights were doing. On the way home I just got so sad. I started to think about her time in the hospital and just how much I missed her.

Loneliness

Today is a day of utter loneliness. I can’t explain it. All I want to do is just sit here and cry. I am at home all alone. I really don’t feel like talking to anyone yet I wish someone was here. Keith is at work. Those that I do call are either not answering their phones or they are out and about running errands. I know it is not anyone’s job to keep me company or help me to feel better. I just wish I did not feel so lonely. The loneliness goes clear to the very bottom of my heart, the depths of my soul. I can’t concentrate on anything else. I just sit here crying. I know ultimately it has to be because I miss Mari so very much but at the same time there is not a specific thing that is making me feel lonely. I just am.

Those around you try to comfort you but they really don’t know what to say or do. Either they tell you they don’t know what to say or they just simply ignore you as they are afraid I might be a porcelain doll or something that might break.

I sit here during the day trying to distract myself by playing around on Facebook most of the time. I don’t do my homework like I am supposed to (although I am getting all A’s in my classes at this point). I am supposed to graduate in May with my graduation ceremony being on May 16th. I started going to school after Mari died so I could finally feel like I accomplished something and since I have been going on and off to school since 1995. I will finally be graduating with my associates in business.

I had decided many years ago that I wanted my accounting degree. My husband thought I was nuts (as do most people) as he thinks accounting is boring, tedious, and simply does not understand it. Whereas I LOVE accounting. I understand it and it comes so naturally for me. I love to do budgets and balancing things. But school has been the hardest it has ever been for me in the last 7 months. I just do not have the concentration I need to keep my focus going.

I am supposed to finish my final from LAST semester for Statistics because I feel apart in the middle of taking it at the end of last semester. I could not finish it. The professor gave me an incomplete and I am supposed to take it this semester at some point. I just can’t seem to concentrate enough to even study for it.

I keep wondering what is wrong with me. Why can’t I do something as simple as studying for my classes? You would think that it would keep me distracted from the obvious loss but it doesn’t.

I only have a month left of school and then I will be taking a break most classes. I am going to take another creative writing class but this time it is about poetry. I am looking forward to that and it will give me something to do.

Mari, please know how very much mommy misses you. I wish you were here and someday (only God knows when) we will be reunited again. I love you baby girl.

Marie’s Unrealized Dream

I wanted to share this story with everyone. I hope you all enjoy it.

It is a beautiful mid-spring afternoon. The temperature outside is approximately 75 degrees. It is a perfect day to accomplish what had been eluding Marie since she started. Could it happen today? Could that all important achievement happen in her life today of all days? She definitely doubts herself. She hasn’t been able to do it as of yet. Every attempt has ultimately ended in defeat. She leaves utterly disappointed because, yet again, she is unsuccessful in her one goal: being able to finally go up to the base during a softball game and hit the ball for the first time.

Marie’s mom had decided to enroll her for the very first time into the Bobby Sox Softball League during her fourth grade year. Marie was put on a team with a coach whom had placed first place almost every year she coached. This year the coach expected no less from her players and expected to win first place yet one more time.

Marie found out rather quickly that softball was not her strong suit. She very rarely was able to hit the ball during practice and had been unable to hit it once during a game. She was always stuck in the outfield as she was not a very good at fielding either. Typically she was only allowed to play for one or two innings as the coach would rather win the game with the players that were good than to allow a child to play very long that wasn’t. Overall, Marie’s natural ability must have been hidden quite well from everyone, to include herself. However, she did know that one day she would finally be able to hit that ball and she just knew that today was going to be that day.

As per the norm before any game was to begin, the coach had all of her girls go out onto the field to warm up. Marie did not know what good this would do her as it never helped one way or the other, but she did as she was told. Even though she was not very good, she still enjoyed being a part of the team and had fun watching her teammates win games. Today she knew it would be no different. She fully expected her brilliant team to win the game but she had no doubt it would not be because of anything she did. However, she knew she had to try as the only way to change the course your headed on is to do something different.

The coach finally called everyone back to the dugout and had a pep talk before the game began. She told the girls that today was no different than any other game. She expects them to win and she would accept no less.

The umpire told each team’s coach that it was time to start the game. The other team was to bat first. So, Marie’s team headed out to the field and she stayed on the bench to keep it warm for her fellow teammates. She would hate for any of them to have to come back and sit on a cold bench once it was their time to bat. Besides, what better way to root her team on than to be able to see everyone and yell loudly from the sidelines: it’s every players dream.

The first half of the inning went by as expected. The pitcher pitched three up and then three down in what seemed like an instant. The team quickly came off the field to have their chance at bat. The second half of the inning went completely opposite as had the first because her team was actually successful at hitting the ball. Her team went quickly up five to zero by the end of the inning.

Marie continued to sit on the bench and watch her team. The second inning came and gone, and then the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Finally the seventh inning came and the coach finally put Marie into the game. She always was placed in the outfield and today was no different. The coach placed her in right field. It seems at this age that most of the balls were usually hit into infield and so there was not much Marie had to do when she had her opportunity out there.

The pitcher did her job and the inning was over in what seemed like a heartbeat. Marie was to be the second player at bat that inning. The girl before her was in the eighth batters position which put Marie into the ninth. The very last position for any player that was not good at batting the softball. Marie definitely fell into that category. She knew she was not very good but she did not care. Each and every time she went up to bat she put her heart and soul into batting and she tried with everything she had in her to make her teammates proud.

The girl before Marie went up to bat. The first pitch thrown to her was a ball. The second pitch was another ball. The third pitch she swung and missed. The fourth pitch was directly over the plate and she swung hard. She hit it out into the outfield and the outfielder missed the ball. She got a double from the play. Now it was time for Marie to come up to bat. She was nervous but knew deep down in her heart that today was finally going to be the day. She was going to not only hit the ball but make it to base.

Marie slowly walked up to base. The crowd is cheering. The opposing team is chanting, “Here batter, batter. Swing batter, batter. Miss.” Marie stands in the batter’s box. She is a right hander. The pitcher pitches the first ball and Marie swings and misses. The pitcher pitches the second ball but Marie lets the softball go by. It was close but it was a ball. The third pitch she swings again and misses. Marie now only has one strike left. She becomes more nervous because she just knows that today is the day. She just knows that she will hit that ball out into the outfield and make it on base.

The pitcher is ready to throw her fourth pitch. Marie is ready. It seems as if time stood still while the pitcher released the softball for her pitch. It is almost like Marie can see the ball coming at her in slow motion. What took all of about two seconds to throw seemed to take about 30 seconds in Marie’s mind. She swung the bat hard as the softball came at her.

The next thing she knows is the ball is hit above the third base person’s head and goes into the outfield where the left fielder cannot get to the ball in time to make the catch. Marie runs with all of her might to first base as the left fielder picks up the softball and immediately throws it. Again, it seems as though time stopped. Just as Marie crossed over first base, the first baseman caught the ball. The umpired yells, “Safe! Tie goes to runner!”

Marie has done it. She not only hit the ball for the first time in a game but she made it onto base and her teammate was able to make it all the way home from second base. Marie had done the unlikely by not only hitting the ball and making it to base, but she had actually scored a run for her team. The game ended with a score of thirteen to two, with Marie’s team obviously winning the game.

Marie’s season continued on with Marie getting her one chance to play each game. She seldom hit the ball and the team ended up winning first place yet one more time. For Marie, or as most of her friends and family know her as Kristena, that day will never be forgotten when she had hit her very first softball during a game and made it to base.