Sorrow a Loss

 That was the day the wind blew wild. The evening sun sinking down while autumn breathed his last and winter was born.

That was the day my heart shattered and my world went black.

Nobody tells you how hard it is to function with a broken heart.  How you almost feel that you rattle when you walk from all the broken pieces.

How you get through your day but its all a blur seen through hazy eyes and a dull mind. You can smile at cashiers and wave back at toddlers and then go home where you retreat to your familiar dark bedroom and sleep the rest of the day away. Smiling at the right times but frozen with sorrow and fear inside, gripping me with an intensity that made my eyes water. Hobbies laid aside like old toys, pain that dully made me realize that I was still alive.

My mind flashes back to that day once, twice, innumerable times a day, an old film playing over and over, I have memorized the entire plot. I twist it around in my mind and wonder if that day could have been different, could I have done something else, waited five minutes, stayed home, stayed in bed.

But, with all the twisting the story doesn’t change, because I can try to change the story all I want but it never brings her back.

I remember my angry words, my impatience as she slowly, with little tongue sticking out, as she made the bunny ears and painstakingly tried looping them into a bow. How the clock seemed to up it’s tempo, how I slaved to keep up with it.

I should have left her there on the steps and let her to her important work. The grocery store could have waited, the world could have waited. But I couldn’t.

Hastily tied shoes, shrugging into jackets, a car seat not buckled quite right, a deer loping across the road.

And just that quick she’s gone.

I can still remember those last moments, her little voice ringing out like a bell, singing to her favorite song as we flew down the highway, my mind indexing through everything that still needed to be done before I finally closed my eyes that night.

The lights and sirens and my confusion. My screams rasping out into the clear cold night, her dark hair stained in red. Her too still body.

A sob catches my throat and brings me back to reality.

I hear the door and a small leap of panic jumps in my belly. Once again, supper is undone, my chores undone. I feel undone.

I feel arms come around my shoulders and I turn and bury my face in his chest. His hands rubbing my back in a slow circle as I sob. I have no map, no compass out of this darkness that seems to consume my very soul. No light beckons me at the end of the tunnel of shame and despair that I find myself in every day.

I go to bed but I do not sleep, each time I close my eyes I see her. I can almost feel her little hand in mine, smell her sweet hair as we cuddle on the big chair in the living room reading the stacks of library books that we brought home each week.

Hear her laughter as she wrestled with her daddy on the floor and her squeals when he would tickle her and kiss her all over her face.

Her brown eyes shimmering with excitement on her fifth birthday.

The pain in my chest brings me back. Quietly, I slipped back out of bed so he could find some sort of rest in his troubled dreams.

Soon the tea kettle hummed and I, waiting with my favorite mug took myself out on the porch. An owl hooted and the katydids and crickets sang in harmony. I wrapped my hands around my mug and closed my eyes, letting their chorus wash over my tired soul and I considered. I considered how to put these broken pieces back together, if not all at once, then one by one.

Because to live with this kind of pain with no compass seemed to be an impossible mountain that I just did not have the strength to climb.

My eyes finally seeming heavy, I silently took myself back to bed scared to death but with a firm resolve in my mind.

The next morning, I tried to eat breakfast but it just would not go past the lump of fear that was in my throat. My coffee seemed to have no taste no matter what I did with it.

Dressed in my best we walked out the door, no real words spoken between us. He silently driving, my palms sweating more and more with each mile.  Panic rising within me I consider asking him to turn around, that this was a terrible idea, that it was all my fault to begin with why would I deserve this? Sensing my panic, he took his hand off of the steering wheel and enveloped mine into his, his thumb caressing the top of my hand. My heart slows its thumping, my eyes start to brim with tears.

Slowing, he pulls into the parking lot, the tires crunching on the gravel. He parked and we sat there in silence, his hand still in mine.

In my heart, I knew that this step would be the first wobbly step of many steps. A journey that would eventually lead me to that light at the end of the tunnel, a first piece of my heart put back into place. I stuffed down the thoughts that popped into my mind, that therapy was for weak people, that surely, I could get through this I just had to be strong, to have a stronger resolve, a stronger faith.

My husband seeing the flash of doubt flash through my eyes pushed back my hair, kissed my forehead and said “It’s okay sweetheart, you’ve got this.”