“As I lay me down to sleep, I’m trying hard not to weep. Because I know when I awake, a big life step my best friend will take”
This is me not sleeping the night before we leave to take my girl across the country and leave her there....
I started blogging two and a half years ago, Incase you don’t know, my other child, my son, died. I wrote to save my sanity, I wrote to heal my soul. I stopped writing around the year anniversary of his death, Partly because I needed to try to stop being so mad and sad but mostly because someone told me it was time.
If you’ve met me before I’ve probably told you that I lost a child, It’s weird because I don’t know why I now feel the need to tell people who don’t know me very well that I lost a kid- I’ve tried to analyze it because it’s almost an uncontrollable impulse at this point- kinda like in the movie Roger Rabbit when Roger is hiding but cannot stand the bad guy knocking “Shave and a haircut” on the walls, Roger holds on as long as he possibly can but finally busts through the wall and belts out “TWOOOOOOOO BIIIIIIIIITS!!”
Sometimes I think it’s because I feel the need to talk about my son and remind the living world that he used to live here too, sometimes I feel like I just gotta get it out there before the new person asks so they won’t feel bad when I answer. I’m still going to work on this but this isn’t about my son, it’s about my daughter.
My daughter was actually the person who told me that it was time to stop grief blogging, my daughter actually has said more emotionally intelligent things to me in the past few years than pretty much anyone I’ve ever met. How strange is it to be the one who should technically be the teacher but in reality be the student?
We are very much alike in many ways but very different in a few, for example, I’m kind of a spaze, like talk to EVERYONE, can’t control it - spaze - say everything- laugh too loud - spaze- “ Super Extra” SPAZE! She’s not.
You know how I said that I tell almost everyone that my son died, well if you meet her and you don’t know that fact about our family, you may never. This isn’t because she didn’t love her brother, this isn’t because she doesn’t think about him everyday or miss him teasing her, hugging the breath out of her, sticking up for her, protecting her, it’s because she isn’t someone who wears her heart on her sleeve for all to see, she keeps it tucked in her pocket until it hurts a little too big and slips out. She keeps her feelings guarded closely, she rarely complains, she doesn’t usually have extreme highs and lows, she’s humble, she’s grounded.
This trait has sometimes been misunderstood as her being stand off-ish or disinterested in pursuing relationships but actually it’s the exact opposite. Her feelings have been hurt so many times in the past because she was too reserved to tell the person hurting her, “Hey you’re hurting me, STOP IT!”, I can’t even count.
She’s getting better at this though, I hope this is one of the things she has learned from me. It took me a long time to learn this lesson but “LOOK OUT” - I’m really pretty skilled at it now! Just ask the people closest to me, Sorry you guys, you know I love you, I just don’t want to deal with BS anymore, it’s for your own personal growth , I promise, I’m basically a psychiatrist at this point, Incase you didn’t know
. But anyway, back to my daughter, my daughter is truly wise beyond her years, one of the nurses who first saw her face on the day she was born whispered, “Oh, this one is an old soul” - and it has turned out to be true.
She has been the security blanket to many and the voice of reason to more and now she’s moving 3405 miles away, The thought of that actually feels like what it looks like you are doing to that plastic torso guy when you are learning CPR - BAM! punch to the chest- Um, ouch!
I know that she is the one that others come to with dilemmas comfortably, not just because I see it but because her people say it. I’m not on this emotional rollercoaster alone.
The other night the brown eyed one who rarely cries said to me with puddling eyes, “Kyli has been my rock, whose going to be here to tell me to stop and think about it?”
The one who likes to fish sat down with me a week ago and told me how sad he was to see her go, “She’s my favorite” he said and put his hands on top of his head.
The love I have seen pour out of her besties leading up to her leaving have been heart touching and also heartbreaking.
And when I say pour, I mean Literally sometimes pour, streams and streams of uncontrollable tears, down the faces of those so dear (hugs the curly haired girl tight
) That was actually part of the reason I felt compelled to write this down tonight, when the usual suspects showed up again, the ones that I’ve watched grow from boys into men, they saw all the boxes and sighed “Shit’s getting real” - that pretty much sums up how we all feel.
I’m going to miss my sweet kid so freakin’ but I’ve never been more proud of anyone in my life.
I love you the most my beautiful, brainy, brave girl.
