Shopping...

Keith and I were just sitting here discussing how there is hardly any food in the house. I don’t do the grocery shopping like I used to any more. It’s typically just me at home in the house most of the time. Keith is at work ridiculously long hours Monday through Friday, and then sometimes even on Saturday, especially right now that he is acting first sergeant of his company while his first sergeant is off at first sergeant school. So, my line of thinking is why do we need that much food in the house all of the time if it is just me.

Then it got me to thinking about why don’t I go shopping more. I used to go shopping every two weeks when Keith would get paid. I would stock up on all the things we needed all the time. We always had a ton of food. It seems like we used to go through a minimum of 4 loaves of bread about every two weeks because Mari’s staple for at least one meal a day, sometimes two was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We were always surprised at how she never got tired of them.

But now anytime I go into any store it seems like I can always find something that either reminds me of Mari or find something that I would have bought for her if she was still here. For example, going into Walgreens, I could find a toy from the movie “Cars” or maybe a DVD she would have liked. The grocery store is a little better but I hardly ever go to an actual grocery story. I typically just go to Target since they have a mini grocery store there, they just don’t have fresh fruits, veggies, or meats. It is a smaller selection but it works for us.

The problem with going into Target is you almost instantly run into the kids clothing department, or you go by the toy department, or the kids shoes, or even just see the DVD section with her favorite movies like “Cars.” It is always there where we go. It does not matter the store, it is just there. The reminders and things I would have bought for her.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a shop-a-holic (like someone who is an alcoholic only I have spending issues). I hardly go shopping now. It’s not that it is under control it is just that is it so hard to see everything that brings me to thinking about Mari. I don’t know when or if this will ever stop but I know as of right now it is still so fresh in my mind. She would probably be fitting fully into her size 7 clothes that had been almost too big for her last summer, and yet she never will now.

All I know is that I miss her so desperately. I love you baby girl.

Pictures...

Today I sit here thinking about my wonderful husband. He has been my rock through all of this. He has been the one to help get me through. Keith has been my everything and I am sure he will continue to be for many years to come.

Today has been a good day for me. I have not cried and I have not felt as sad as I normally am. This is a good thing.


The two paragraphs above were written yesterday.

Pictures. All of a sudden I am sitting here thinking about pictures. I started to think about pictures because of my profile pictures I have on Facebook. I initially had a pictures of me, Keith and Mari together. Recently I changed it to a picture of just me. Then that got me to thinking. I was thinking about one of the last time I had had a picture taken of me by myself. It has been several years. Then I got to thinking about when that exactly was. I think the last time I had a professional picture taken of me by myself is before we had Mari. I would have our family picture done, but that only consisted of Keith and I. We would have a couple together and then we would have one done of each one of us by ourselves. I would always stick the one of us together in the middle and then our individual pictures on the other side. We have not done that in years.

With Mari, the focus has always been Mari. One time Keith and I took a picture of us together but we also had two family pictures and pictures of Mari by herself along with Keith and I each being alone with Mari.

Now we have to go back to having a family picture done of us just the two of us again. How does this seem right. It just doesn’t. I am at such a loss. I was sitting her playing on Facebook and just procrastinating on getting to my homework and then for some reason I started thinking about my profile pic.

I have had our family pictures done almost every year right around Christmas time so that I can send everyone an updated picture of us for the year. December 2007 we were moving and I just said we would do it next year. Now there is now next year. Mari is gone. Now we HAVE to go back to the way we used to do it. I cannot stand that.

I think when we go to get our first family picture done without Mari that I may bring a picture of her along with us as in my heart and my mind she will just be our little angel there with us. I just miss her so much. I love you baby girl.

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.