Tonight, I drove Jeremy home from a party and the moon was so big, so orange and so low. I don’t remember seeing anything like it before.
Except for the early hours of the morning when we were driving Soraya to my mum’s house on the way to the hospital to have Isaac.
Soraya was 1 and hadn’t been out at night before. She kept pointing and saying “the moon!” over and over with huge excitement like it was the best thing she had ever seen.
It was so gorgeous, and I cried as I said goodbye to her soon after. We hadn’t been separated like this before and I was dreading a hospital stay without the baby girl who was everything to me.
As we approach the 18 month mark without our Soraya Bear, I have been trying to think of what to share. What wise words I can say about my grief and how bloody much I miss Soraya, my family as it was and the person I used to be.
But I can’t find the words anymore. Not for this blog, not for myself, not at all.
I’ve struggled to write much lately or to articulate my grief in general.
People ask how I am.
“Ok”
“How are you really doing?”
“I’m plodding along.”
I don’t know what else to say. I think I hate that question even more than I did a year ago.
Because a year ago, how I felt, how I was grieving, everything going on in my head would fall out of me all the time. I couldn’t stop it.
Whenever I talked to someone, it was like a big wave. If you asked how I was, there was a real chance you might regret it as I poured my soul into the answer.
But over time, my grief is growing quieter. Not less, just not as openly loud. I guess I’m able to compartmentalise it more. I don’t cry to strangers anymore.
But, it’s still there. It still defines every moment of my life. It still feels impossibly hard to carry. I still don’t know how I’ll ever be remotely ok. I still have days and weeks where the pain is so great that it swallows me up and I’m completely lost.
I wonder if it’s not about compartmentalising, but it getting easier for my brain to fool itself that this didn’t happen. That Soraya wasn’t real. That the whole thing was a dream. Or I subconsciously don’t let my brain remember her exactly how she was, that it sees her as more of a shadow than a fully developed, absolutely amazing person who was my world.
Maybe the only way forward is to partially forget her.
But who would ever chose that?
It still feels so unbelievable.
Isn’t it more believable that this is all a bad dream than that my amazing baby girl killed herself?
Which option makes more sense? It’s so hard. It’s so cruel.
All I want every moment is Soraya. Jete-ing into the living room and making the house shake. Making us all smile with her amazing energy. Does it ever get easier? How can it? What is easier anyway?
I guess it is “easier” than 17 months ago. But it’s also harder.
The daily landmines in my life haven’t stopped. Last week, I opened the term newsletter for Isaac’s (Soraya’s) high school. Every mention of what year 10 is doing hurts my soul. Or year 9, 11 or 12. All the things Soraya should do.
I applied for my birth certificate online and had to fill in the lines of my medicare card to prove who I am. It wouldn’t accept no line #3… and my card has no line #3 anymore. I tried entering Soraya as #3, but it still didn’t work. I tried entering Isaac as #3, but it didn’t accept that either. There was no combination that worked.
It felt like a metaphor for my life and my family now. Nothing works without Soraya.
So how does it feel nearly 18 months after losing my princess?
There are no words.
Absolute fucking shit doesn’t even come close to describing it.
