SHAKEN OUT AND EMPTY

The time has arrived in this journey of survival where words seem inadequate to clearly and accurately describe what it means or how it feels to lose someone you love dearly.  I have in my lifetime lost many loved ones.  Death has come in many forms - natural deaths, a murder, the untimely and devastating passing of a precious five year old little girl that lived next door;  miscarriages; but nothing, nothing , nothing compares with the loss of not one child but two.

Christian, the sunshine and joy of our family, died by suicide on January 18, 2010.  Heather, although not my biological child, was my daughter by her choosing and mine - and who I could not have loved more - died a needless death on June 19, 2012.  Both were 32 years old at the time of their passing.

Both could have been saved if only the universe had opened the gates to the heavens and revealed to me the mysteries and the wisdom found there.  The answers certainly were not to be found within myself.  If love had been enough, I wouldn't be sitting here tonight writing these words and feeling this pain.

In the past words have been my friend.  They flowed as freely as did the tears that streamed down my cheeks......but no more.  Words fail me.  I feel so empty.  I feel as though someone has opened the top of my head, turned me upside down, and shaken all the emotion out.

Having experience it before, I recognize what is happening.  It is the same numbness I felt when I lost Christian.  I know, too, there are no words that can fix it.  It must be struggled through with all it's varying emotions ...... and questions that have no answers.

There is the inevitable guilt ... could I have done anything to make a difference in my sweet girl's life?  I KNOW guilt is a worthless emotion but I have felt it nonetheless.  I have questioned my worthiness to be called her "momma".  She never told me about the pain she was in.  All our conversations were loving and sweet but looking back on it now and knowing what I have learned, they were not honest conversations.  I know that she loved me in the purist and sweetest way and wanted to protect me from additional pain but still I say to myself "I should have known something was wrong.  I should have felt it."  How many other survivors have questioned themselves in the same way?

I learned a lot of valuable and hard lessons when my Christian left us.  I learned that life is a journey and in that journey there are many special moments but there are also times of hardship and heartache.  I learned that regardless of which experience you are dealing with if we put aside anger, guilt, and blame we grow and progress even when we are not aware of it.  I also learned that without love in our hearts and a willingness to reach out, help, and support others that our own healing slows to a crawl.

I learned that more love is received than given when we allow others into our lives that have lived through (to a degree) what we are now going through.  The amount of love and caring that is showered upon us by our fellow survivors is both humbling and our source of greatest earthly strength.

Even with all I have learned in the last two years and six months, I know this one last thing.  Knowledge is not enough.  Experience is not enough.  With the loss of each loved one, the pain and the journey begins anew.