her silence..

I wonder a lot what I look like to others. You see me and talk to me and I seem relatively normal. I am not.

I wonder if people think I am begin over dramatic with my writing. I am not.

What I write is my truth. I don’t even understand it. I don’t understand how its getting harder and harder every day.

Every free moment I get I cry right now. When I go to the bathroom I take those few minutes and I cry.

Big silent tears.

I know there was a article going around Facebook about tears for different reasons looked at under a microscope having different physical properties. I am not at all surprised by it.. and it helps me feel a little less crazy. Right now my tears are bigger than normal.. and heavier too. And when I cry.. they just fall.. one right after the other onto my shirt.

Today I took the boys to preschool summer camp. Nicholas’ first experience. We talked about Jonathan taking care of him and I was so thankful I got to say … “You take care of him.. like Jennifer took care of you last year.” and then I thought that I can say that when Charlotte goes to Nicholas. That Jonathan took care of him at his first camp the way Jennifer took care of him.. and now you need to do it for Charlotte. I love it. I love so much that I can include her in preschool camp.

but thats it.

Thats the last of it..

Nicholas did really well today. Jonathan was an amazing big brother but Nicholas also just took care of himself.. he is so independent like that. This morning Nicholas was all kinds of hyper nervous energy.. Jonathan was talking to him about how he would help him and show him what to do.. By the time we got to school Nicholas was ready to jump out of the car and Jonathan was the one I had to coax out.

I found myself driving home.. crying since it was just me and Baby Charlotte.. thinking about the boys and Jennifer. How she was going to pave the way for Jonathan. How he isn’t made to go first. .. to be the oldest. In a lot of ways Nicholas is more adept at begin the eldest.. and its just not fair. I don’t understand why Jonathan is being forced into a role in our family that he wasn’t created for.

Tony and I talked yesterday while the boys were in quiet time. Which I am happy to report has been instrumental in bringing them together as friends. They go back there with the timer and I give them a puzzle or train tracks or game and they stay back there and play.. not always together.. but near each other. ..

I remember Jonathan and Jennifer back there. One was always running out to me… they played together like best friends do the whole time… and fought me on cleaning up every single day.

..she called me Mama sometimes. ..

Tony and I were talking (I asked him to do another guest blog) and I told him how I am starting to realize she was real. That so much of this time it almost feels like a dream.. like a fantasy that my beloved daughter wasn’t even real. Now I am starting to realize she was.. perhaps thats the reason for the constant tears I am experiencing now ..?

He said he wonders if this is hell. If he is dead and this is hell. Not that this feels like hell.. but that its so bad he sincerely questions if he is in hell.

We talked about us. About each of our fears for our marriage in this living hell we are in together. We have very different fears and for very different reasons.. but we are talking about them… always renewing our commitment to each other and our family…simply through talking to each other. We grieve her so differently. We even have different regrets about the same exact moments with her.

Learning what Tony thinks and feels about all of this makes me wonder what is going on in my Jonathan’s head..

He misses her. So much. He is really struggling with it right now. He had a dream about her this weekend. Tony asked, like we often do, what they dreamed about and he said Jennifer. But he didn’t want to share what he dreamt with his Daddy. We still aren’t sure exactly why not. With Tonys permission I asked Jonathan later about his dream and he shared it with me. I wonder if maybe he is dreaming about her every night .. only to wake up and find she is still gone.

I told him today that I sometimes still think she is going to come back.. that I know she isn’t.. that I know she is gone in the way we know her forever.. but that sometimes I still think she is going to walk in a room.. I figure if I am thinking it.. he probably is too.. He is only 4 though .. so he has no outlet.. no friend to talk to about it.. nobody to say .. I know me too..

I wish I knew the right things to do for my surviving children. I am just making it up as I go along.

I just know he is hurting tremendously now. I feel like we are all deepening in our grief over the last couple of weeks. And I just hate it. I wish I could save us all.. I wish I could do something to make this better.

I can’t though.

I can and will fight for other kids. I will do everything I can to raise peoples awareness about childhood cancer. .. and the devastation it causes.. to the child stricken and the families. .. Maybe even more the families since I only know such a short snapshot of time with a cancer child.

The complete decimation of our family though is something I am learning about daily as we struggle to rebuild.

I thought cancer was hard.. I thought hearing the words “there is no cure” was hard..

its nothing..

it does not even compare ..

to her silence.