sunset after five years

So when I walked out the front door on Tuesday evening, April 21, 2009, I was awed by the pink clouds in the east against the brilliant blue sky. I still remember the first time I saw Maxfield Parish's work, I thought he'd added some imaginary color to his skies. But over the years I've been treated to skies that amaze me with more vivid colors than any I grew up with in the Bay Area. Now when I see such beautiful things, I often think of Katie and feel that she is experiencing them with me. She is a constant presence in our family now, able to be both in Chico and Chicago in our hearts and minds.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004, sometime after 7 pm. I had taught all day then commuted back home and fell onto the bed to relax, when I heard the phone ring in the kitchen. Mark answered it, and came into the bedroom and handed it too me, saying "It's Wellesley and they want to know where Katie is." In that moment, the resposibility for finding my daughter and taking care of her became mine. We drove to the San Francisco airport, and I ran through the terminal to board the plane, flying all night to Boston. A couple on the plane gave me a ride to Wellesley, but within minutes of my arrival, her body was found.

I would never be able to help her or take care of her... or when she got well give her back the responsibility for her own life. So now, five years later, I still hold the burden of that responsibility, and I'm trying to figure out how to put it down. I don't have the answers, I just know I'm weary. And I'm searching for a way to free myself from responsibilities that no longer have any meaning beyond guilt. I can't help her, I can't save her, her life is over, so why am I still carrying this around?

The Agony of Grief

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes down upon you with unimaginable force, sweeps you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.

Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time. It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.

Grief is three o'clock in the morning sweats that won't stop. It is dreadful Sundays, Mondays that are no better. It makes you look for a face in the crowd, knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd.

Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind and makes room for the phantasmagoric. It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting, without saying a word.

Grief makes what others think of you moot. It shears away the masks of normal life and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth before propriety can stop you. It shoves away friends, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites address books for you.

Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk, right to their faces. It tells the world that you are untouchable at the very moment when touch is the only contact that might reach you. It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.

Grief discriminates against no one. It kills. Maims. And cripples. It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises, and the mettle of rebirth. It returns life to the living dead. It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue. It assures the living that we know nothing for certain. It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens.

Grief will make a new person out of you, if it doesn't kill you in the making.

— Stephanie Ericsson Companion Through the Darkness: Inner Dialogues on Grief

Lost Dreams

I've finally found some words for the overwhelming grief that sneaks up on me and knocks me down lately: lost dreams. I thought I understood my grief over my daughter's death, but grief still has new tricks to play.

Missing Katie, the presence of her absence, that part never changes. She seems so real to me, she could walk right in the door and the last 4 and a half years would just fall away. Since this nightmare became my reality, I've had to learn to live with her death...the presence of her absence.

I've struggled to find connections with Katie, through my memories and my dreams. It's not the way I want her, but it's what I've got. There are still five people in our family, I still have a daughter, my sons still have a sister. She should be here, but she's not.

She will never graduate from college or have a family. There are no more exuberant phone calls from her. Family photos have become impossible because we can never really be a family without her. She will never play her clarinet or the piano again. She should be here.