In Memory

It's been a while since I've written a blog post and I feel like I don't know where to begin. A lot has happened over the summer. I've learned quite a few lessons; and taught some. I took my kids on our first rode trip (I will share pictures and video before the year is out). I got to know special people and I published Volume 1 of my book. But this post isn't about those things.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of when my fourth child for my father grew her wings. I miss her dearly. At times during my family's very eventful summer, I found myself feeling guilty enjoying activities we would not have been able to enjoy if she was still with us. We even went to Great Adventure for the first time since she died. 

Losing one of my children has probably been one of the hardest things I've had to deal with. The torture my father use to put me through I eventually became conditioned to. And even then I always trusted that my Creator would deliver me. But when your child goes back to The One, there's no coming back; there's no way to find her; theres no escape from the loss. There is only time and I am a testament that while time does not heal all, it does make things a lot easier.

 
I wrote a poem last year for her and I want to publish it here. I contemplated if I should post it on the blog I created about KoKo, but most of the posts on that blog was written from a painful place. Since Unashamed An Open Book is more about healing and growth, I have included it below. 

The Production of A Drop

Thoughts of you ran though my head today, as usual. Bittersweet memories shove me back to a period that is ever-present in my mind. I imagine our times spent together, the struggles we endured together, the moments of joy we experienced with each other, and I miss them. 

As my surroundings blur, so my minds eye can focus on the visions of you occupying my brain, my stomach constricts like the palm of a fist. The energy in my groin begins to rise into the space in my belly that continues to get smaller and smaller as if it will implode on itself. I focus on your smile in my head and the way the hair on my arms would rise when you touched me. Its selfish of me really, the self pity I feel because I, I, I....Miss you.

The energy in my belly begins to gyrate looking for a way to escape because the force is just too great for this little space at the core of me.

Instantly its not in my belly anymore. With one exhale this energy skips past my lungs unaffected by the intrusion of the immaterial mass.

I’m lost in thought now. Transported back to a time where I can smell the small crease between your collarbone and your jawline. I experience the tickling sensation between my fingers as they glide through your hair. Now my neck is warm and tingly. Forgetting for a moment the surge of energy climbing its way through the core of me, I notice my throat is dry so I swallow.

As the muscles in my mouth contract and relax, my jaws flood with saliva, as if in anticipation of something in my stomach that needs to be digested.

My esophagus responds like it has a mind of its own, and it almost hurts. Not enough so to restrict my breath, but enough to make me conscious of the slim shape and small size of the tunnel that serves as a path of physical survival.

Suddenly my mental journey through time with you comes to the day you were no more. Well, no more with me as I understand it. I see myself helpless, helpless, helpless and again, very selfishly I, I, I, pity me.

The energy that began in my groin has left a faint trail of its presence in my throat and is now clawing its way through my face. Uncontrolled by my conscious mind, my nostrils flair in an attempt to adjust to the diminished air flow caused by the swelling in my sinuses. A response triggered by the journey of the immaterial mass making its way through the core of me.

Just as I open my mouth to make use of an alternate breath escape, the conduit connecting my sinuses to the glands in my eyes begin to swell. I notice that my surroundings are not only mentally blurry but physically distorted as well.

The corners of my eyes itch slightly as I try to push my self pity aside and hold on to the visions of you in my mind smiling at me. I hear your voice just as clear as if you were whispering in my ear when I laid next to you. My lower eyelids are weighted with the hold the energy clawing up my face has. Invisible fingers seem to pull on my lower lash line forcing me to squint just a little.

The thought of how much my life has changed now that you are no longer a part of it, invokes an alternate ending answering the question “what if you were still here?” And again, selfishly, I feel sorry for myself.

These thoughts mixed with the itch in the corner of my eyes, combined with the tingling of my sinuses, in unison with the constriction of my esophagus, effected by the tightness in my belly, stimulated by the energy in my groin, causes me to blink. Then, the energy, the immaterial mass making its way through the core of me, clawing up my face, is released as moisture in the form of a drop escaping the windows of my soul. I miss you my daughter, and I cry.