The Pain Continues as Life Goes On

It's been a hard year so far, but why would I expect any different? Every year is a hard year now. I have been trying so hard to be grateful for the time that I had with my girl. However, I don't feel like anytime that is not a full lifetime could ever be enough. Things have been so hard without her here and I constantly wish that she were. Sometimes I see a girl who is about her age and my breathe is taken away imaging what it would be like to be able to see her grow up. She'd be 14 now and would be turning 15 in December. I can't believe that I won't get to know her as a teenager.

This picture brings me so much joy! Both of them are so clearly happy to be with one another. I miss seeing this joy between the two of them.

Being a parent has certainly been the greatest blessing in my life and I would not trade it for anything. However, losing Adeline is also the most painful and awful part of my life and something that I don't feel like I can ever quite get over or understand. I don't know why the universe let this happen to me. I feel like I had to have done something pretty awful, but so awful that I blocked it from my memory because out of all of the transgressions that I can think of....none would warrant this level of pain as a punishment.

Sometimes I worry that I am just unlucky, that I am destined to be alone even though I have a thriving and beautiful family. If I had left, would she still be here? These thoughts flood me and consume me some days. Other days, I wake up forgetting that she is not here with us. It is like she is with friends or at my parents house until the crushing blow of reality tears apart my heart one more time.

It's been 2,005 days and I still don't think that I can tell you anything more about grief than I could that first day so very long ago. Losing a child is soul crushing. You cna't survive as you were and you try to survive as you can. You don't actually survive though, a piece of you continues to die each day that you are forced to live without your child.

I try to focus on the other kids and Shane to get through my days. I fear the day that something happens that I am alone becuase I don't know how I will go on then. I pray that I never have to find out and that in some way that God will grant this blessing. I want to go next. I don't want to lose anyone else.

I've been pouring myself into work and reading. Fiction has been a fun summer activity. Something that helps me to break my mind away from things, but sometimes I think that this is a dangerous path. It would be so easy to close my eyes and daydream of a fictional world in which my beautiful girl is alive. I am not certain that I will ever be able to end that all-consuming fantasy. I want to have my beautiful girl here enjoying life with us.

We were planning vacation last week and once again the painful reality that she should be with us but won't be is hitting me. I hate this new part of our vacations. I hate knowing that she won't be here to greet us when Shane and I come back from trips alone. I hate knowing that she doesn't get to go to all of the places with us or share in adventures with our family. It is just a horrible place to be in.

I try so hard to stay positive, to be proud of the other kids and their accomplishments and to just focus on them to push through. They each make me so happy in unique and different ways.

We took Andrew out to have a few drinks with us (Matilda's, Rhythm Kitchen, Kenny's Westside) and dinner to celebrate his accomplishment of finishing his first year of teaching so strong. I pray that he likes his new coworkers as much as he liked his old ones. I also pray that he is able to find local friends and people to spend time with after moving, which I know can be so hard to accomplish.

Althea graduated from high school and scheduled her first semester of college courses this morning with her advisor. She has had so many accomplishments for us to be proud of. In so many ways I can not believe that our little girl is grown and will be an "official" adult in a few shorts, celebrated with her own very first tattoo. (This is what she wanted!)

Huxley is working hard at Chick-Fil-A and playing football again. His dedication to football and how hard he works has become inspirational. He really puts his heart and soul into every single thing that he does.

Shane and I are taking things day by day. We celebrated our wedding anniversary last month, but we had his grandma's funeral and so much more going on. The traditional gift was "textiles" so we bought a new tent that goes onto the back of our car for camping as we are going to sell our camper. (Just need a dry day to be able to finsih cleaning it and taking pics to sell. Rain, rain, go away!!)

Aside from all of that, work has been good. I love teaching history and know that it was what I was born to do. I do not love teaching political science courses in the same way. I will be applying to UIUC's PhD program in the fall. If I get in, that will be my next adventure. If I do not, I will continue to apply for full time positions in the area. This past spring I was really hopeful about a full time job where I wanted to be more than anything, but they decided not to hire anyone this round and encouraged me to apply next year when they redefine the position. I took this as the push and sign to go ahead and try for the PhD. I will continue to adjunct if I get into the program, but I do not plan on applying for the full time position if I do get in. I would rather have the PhD and then focus solely on teaching history after this did not work out, it felt like such a big and clear sign that I was meant to do more.

We will be headed to WI in 10 days and I am so excited! We haven't done a WI vacation in a long time and we are exploring all new areas and activities that we have not explored before, so it should be super fun. The kids are great ages for travel now too!

Well, I am going to try and be better about blogging more, but who knows becuase I always say that and I have yet to follow through. The point is that I am going to try. There are a few things that I am going to try to better myself:

1. Journal each and every day!

2. Daily yoga/stretching and exercise.

3. Tracking what I eat and writing it all down.

4. Blog more frequently.