Over the last month or so, something was either asked of me or assumed of me, and it made me think, I need to write about this because those who aren’t in a current battle with grief don’t realize this.

After Kim passed, many people would tell me, the holidays are gonna be the worst part. I think those not struggling with this project their happiest moments in their own lives and imagine having those ripped away in order to sympathize with us coping with loss. The thing is, do holidays suck after losing a loved one? Yes, but in all honesty, i’d trade the feeling of how I feel on a holiday to void the feelings I get on a daily basis. Sure, it’s paralyzing waking up on Christmas morning and Kim not being here. You know what’s even worse? Waking up THIS morning and her not being here. And Tomorrow morning. And the next. It’s not just missing our valentine day zoo trips we started on our first valentine’s when we were dating. No. Its going to the zoo ANY day and her not being there. See, we always think the BIG events are the most significant, because on those holidays and vacations we tend to overdue it and glamorize things, like meals, what we wear, etc. When you lose someone, you don’t mourn a day, or an event you wont do any more. You mourn life, & death. 

I do not want to come across as I am talking down to anyone that does not understand this, because I know if you do not get it today, one day, you will. Here is a post from November 2019 I wrote, about 2 months after Kim passed:

Everyone told me the holidays are the worst part of grief but this day (Thanksgiving) sucked no more than any other day. I know it hasn’t been 2 months yet, but I just don’t know how Ill ever….ever go a day without this pain inside me. She had soooo much life left to live that how can I ever get to a point where I can accept this? Every year we would go to my cousins house for different holiday dinners. We always took a pic there…the 3 of us. Now its just me and Ava.

Ava says it in a unique way. She says that when she sees me cry it makes her brain cry. That tells me she gets sad and holds it in. Sometimes I can hold it in and other times I can be out food shopping and lose it when I just imagine Kim in that aisle looking for her favorite items. Even better would be when she found something new that just came out in the grocery store that she could eat. I have a text message from her where she found a new flavored kombucha, Sent me a picture of it and said “what a time to be alive”. She appreciated so much in this world.

We did our regular bedtime routine tonight….after reading 2 stories, and right when she is about to go to bed she realizes one of the stories she wanted to read wasn’t 1 of the ones we did. I said OK I’ll do one more, which 1 is it? Of course it’s basically a mother taking her children out or for a fun day. If I didn’t already feel so bad today this book really put me on my ass. I hate that she does not have a mother to take her out and do fun things with. I hate the as she gets older and she needs that mom around to talk to or get advice from she won’t have it. Honestly even if she had an older sister there would be someone she could confide in. Everywhere you turned the world has an expectation that a child has a mother. Yesterday she took pictures with Santa and he said OK let’s take a good one for your mom and dad. She came home without work from pre school that reference her, her mom, and dad. It’s just not natural for this to have happened to Kim and it’s not right for Ava to have to find her way through a world that will not understand what she’s going through.

Are there things I should be thankful for? Of course there are. What scares me is if I admit what I’m thankful for, How much time do I get before those things get taken from me to? I feel like keeping them secret is safer.

I love to read stuff I wrote almost 2 years ago. So much of it rings true still, yet I see how I have changed in otehr areas. The way I closed that,talking about things being taken from me that I love so maybe I should keep them secret, is the opposite of how I feel today. I think it is so important to constantly take inventory of the blessings you have in life, so that you are always in protection of them, and therefore staying aware of them. If I was asked to put into writing what I felt was taken from Ava or I by Kim passing, I dont think Icould do a fair job. I am not even trying to be dramatic. How can I say what was taken when the story was not done being written? I know what we had that can never be replaced, but what was yet to come? What was still on our path? Maybe what was taken, the thing that mattered most, was the mystery of life. That was taken. There is no more mystery. We were robbed of a piece of us that mattered most, and it is not mystery, but a fact, that she will not be wking up with me tomorrow.