Today it has been 70 days without my girl. 70 days without my angel. I feel sick when I think about it being so long since I have felt her kiss or heard her say that she loves me. The pain seems to be getting immensely worse. I want to curl into a ball, cry all day long, and beg the universe and God to send my baby home to me, even though I know that it will do not good. I feel as though at any minute, my broken heart will stop beating. I actually feel pain and pressure in my chest at times because it just hurts so bad.
When I feel all of this pain, I attempt to think back to happier moments and better times like these. This was our trip to California, right after landing at the airport and getting on a shuttle to pick up our rental car. This was not just Adeline's first time in California, but my mom's and mine as well. It was an amazing trip and it was the perfect way to celebrate her 5th birthday. This photo was taken on December 5, 2016...the day of her 5th birthday.
I am trying to do everything right, to be healthy and to make good choices that will keep me alive and well. I can barely eat still. I eat one meal a day and sometimes some soy bacon or Shakeology, but it is not the same as when I would eat normally...even when I was intermittent fasting, I ate a much bigger meal in the evening than what I do now. I am taking supplements and vitamins in hopes that this will help with moods and with me feeling better, but in reality the stress of not having my girl here and the pain that I feel seem so far away from where I am.
All of my pain and sorrow aside, I was able to go to a painting day yesterday when I was with my mom and friends that she and I had from when I used to play BUNCO with her. They have not been able to play BUNCO in over a year due to COVID-19. We painted an adorable bunny looking up at the sky. When I look at it, I feel as though I can sense Adeline looking down and saying how cute those bunnies are. Althea went with us and it was so nice to have some time with my girl doing some art as we used to do a lot of art before the fire. We always painted, did crafts, and really spent time together doing these things. I had so many canvases, pieces of paper, and small trinkets from when we would go to pottery places in our home. These are treasures that we had that we can never get back and things that it breaks my heart that I do not have right now. I need them to hold and think about the memories that I had with my girl, so much time where we just were present together.
In some ways I thank God every single day that we had COVID-19. I know that this might make some people feel bad, uncomfortable or something else. I do wish that there had been no deaths from the virus. I would never wish death on anyone, because I now know the most painful form of grief and would never want to see anyone else grieving in this way. I still expect for my girl to come running through the door in the morning, to hear her footsteps in the hall when I wake up, but then the cold harsh reality that she is not here floods me. I have a hard time caring about me at all right now. I hate me for not saving her. I hate myself for leaving her to go ahead and not making another choice that would have resulted in her being here with us. I hate myself for everything that I did wrong in those last few moments of her life. I hate that I did not get her out of that house and I will forever hate myself for not being able to save her.
People have been so good to us. The BUNCO girls gave us this beautiful unicorn picture with Sweet Adeline on it. I love it so much and am so thankful that they had such a beautiful gift made that we will be able to hang on our Adeline wall that we are planning. This unicorn is just too cute. In addition, a poster group online that I am not part of has been sending us beautiful posters from our favorite bands. Some of these have even ended up being tours or shows that we attended. It has been a moment of joy on very long and dark days when these small treasures arrive. My friend Sarah sent me a box of make up goodies (that I forgot to take a picture of) and my own crocheted Bernie Sanders sitting in his chair with his mittens. It was so sweet of her to send me a few treasures to try and make my day better. It means so much to me that my friends love me enough to be thinking of me on these long and dark days. I think that there is even more meaning to their love when I feel so unlovable right now. It is so hard to be me anymore. I don't feel like myself. I feel like this whole thing has been an out of body experience, a nightmare that I am going to one day wake up from. I wonder if when I die I will feel that closure that I have been hoping to feel. I wonder if in death I will feel as though I have awoken from the nightmare. My friend Kristy bought me dinner this week and we decided to start planning a little summer adventure to New Orleans together. Friends that I knew from going to concerts, Krystle and Renee, sent me an amazing bag with a patch made just for our Sweet Adeline and a beautiful bracelet. Then my friend Sue went through her small shop and sent us the most amazing gift box with little treasures for everyone. It was so generous and much appreciated.
My friend Greg's mom has made my girls cute gifts for years. She made them shirts, vests, and aprons that they adored. In fact, Adeline's apron was still hanging on the hook in our kitchen when we had the fire as she used to wear it when we were baking. She made many of their favorite masks including the Shopkins one that I have in a bag because it has a booger of Adeline's on it. I know that this sounds really gross, but that s a piece of her that I can never have again. I would give anything to have her so I could not bare to wash this mask when I found it and instead I stuck it into a bag. Anyways, my precious Sweet Adeline visited Ann in a dream and told her that she needed her to make us all a hug in a pillow. She designed this pillow even telling Ann what colors to make the hearts that she wanted made in five pieces with a pink heart in the center for her. She told her that she wanted us to have these pillows so that maybe we would not be so sad. I have tried really hard to not be sad, but it feels impossible without my girl here. Some days I find it hard to look at pictures or to see the videos of my girl. Other days I am able to fully understand that my angel would have wanted me to be happy and that she would not have wanted me to be crying and sad all of the time. I just remind myself that it is okay to grieve and be sad. I want to have joy, but I also want to allow myself to fully mourn and feel the things that I am feeling.
I am thankful that I am on medication right now. I know that the anti-depressant keeps me from going over the edge. I know that I am not strong enough to live life without it. I have found that it helps me in so many ways. It doesn't remove the pain or make me numb which is something that was very important to me because I wanted to still feel things. I could no be on a medicine that makes me numb or doesn't allow me to cry. I needed a medicine that still made it okay for me to feel.
Today we will enter our old house one last time. We will enter the place where my girl took her last breath, where we had the fire that destroyed everything, and the house where we shared so many memories and give it our final fairwell. My brother wanted our old front door and we will pick that up and drop off at his house today. This is the front door that I brought my babies home to. This is where Adeline grew up and the only home that she will ever know. This is the house that was giving me a bad feeling so intense that I begged Shane to move. This was the house that I had hated because I wanted something else and yet it is the only house that I will ever have memories of living in with my girl. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be at peace knowing that this is where my girl was and that this is where she will always be in my mind, the hallways where I would hear her footsteps, the bedroom where I would hear her laughter, the desk where she sat behind me as she did school, the bed that she would crawl into and tell me she loved me and give me those amazing hugs, the table where we sat and ate so many dinners and played so many games, the bathroom with our huge bathtub that she used to crawl into with me when I was taking a bath, and the kitchen where we used to bake and make treats together. This is so hard and it is so difficult to navigate because I do not know what to do.
I will take trash bags with me today and I will grab as many of Adeline's clothes as I can. I will fill two trash bags with the intention of making some shadow boxes, having some stuffed animals made (I am hoping for a unicorn rather than a bear.), and then having a quilt that I can sleep with each and every night. I know that life will never again be the same. I know that going into this house and letting it go and telling it goodbye will never be something that is easy. I was supposed to move from this house one day, but I was supposed to move with my girl. This is not what was supposed to happen. This is not what was in the plan, and yet here we are.
Yesterday I took the kids to Target. I had a goal to not cry in the store. This is a pretty huge goal considering that most of the time when I walk down those isles, something will remind me of my angel and something will set me off into a sobbing mess. I did not make it through the store without crying. However, I did not sob. I started to feel the tears well up when I saw these tubes of chapstick. I know that she would have loved that they had flavors that had unicorn in the name.
Then I saw these baskets and this is when the tears actually began to fall. I need to get some eggs for Althea to dye and decorate. She has said that she is interested in doing this. It makes it really hard for me right now. Egg decorating was something that both girls loved. I always sat with them for hours watching them and helping Adeline if anything was difficult. This is something that I looked forward to each and every year. Without her here, it feels wrong to be celebrating everything. It feels wrong to have fun. I am going to try my hardest to make decorating eggs fun for Althea. She wants to do decorate unicorn eggs. I just ordered the kits to do this along with some others and will be decorating eggs with the kids when I return from my solo adventure. It was hard to pick out the things that Adeline would have liked as her sister wants to do these things. I think that Althea is choosing the things that Adeline would have liked as a way to stay close with her and a way to keep her spirit alive around her. This has made doing things extremely difficult as I am reminded while we are doing them that Adeline is not here too. I did pick up some plastic eggs for Adeline that are unicorns. I am going to have each of us write a message to Adeline about our favorite Easter memory on a slip of paper and put that into the egg. This will give us a way to still feel as though she is here with us and will allow us to put some more unicorns on her shelf when we move. These unicorns will be filled with memories which is special to me and will be something that we can keep in a special place after we get moved into our new home. I think that doing things like this on the holidays is really the only way that I am ever going to make it through them.
As I take deep breaths in my preparation for getting ready and ask the universe and God for strength today, I am reminded that we can all do things to make our lives a little better. We can all do the things that we need to help make life what we would hope for and wish for. I miss Adeline so much every single second of every single day. I don't even know how to describe the longing that I feel deep within my soul, just that I long to hold her, have her near hand to be able to just hug and snuggle my precious angel.