Oceans of tears

I have been home from Florida about 24 hours. I went there to reflect, process and possibly heal a little from the trauma of losing my Cate Pearl. It’s been almost two months since her accident. Everything is split into before and after. Even my 7 year old daughter refers to events as before/after. I’m not sure what I expected. I did have plenty of alone time. Cried an ocean of tears and left them in the Gulf of Mexico. I met and found comfort in a group of wonderful women who were likewise grieving for their own loved owns. When I got home I was hit very hard by the reality of my loss. But I have tried to do all the right things. Seek therapy. Psychiatric treatment. Alone time to process what happened. Pour time and energy into charities that Cate would want me to. So can I have her back now? Haven’t I suffered enough? Comfort eludes me. 

But I am not hopeless. Maybe that is my problem. I have always been hopelessly optimistic. Right after Cates accident I was determined to write and deliver the perfect eulogy. I had to. I owed it to her. At the time I didn’t know what I now know. That pretty much everyone everywhere already knew how amazing she is. But it was therapeutic for me to write it and inexplicably I was able to deliver it. But I need you all to know that I could not do the same today. Reality and grief have crept in and replaced the purpose I once felt. It is much harder to find the denial and detachment that allowed me to function a month ago. I tell you all of this for specific reasons. First of all, everyone handles grief differently. Only today do I understand why people told me that I shouldn’t or couldn’t deliver her eulogy at the memorial. Secondly, I could really not care less about politics right now. But the images I see of children being separated from their families at the border make my PTSD flare up. I am in no position to offer up better solutions. I only know that these children will suffer long term trauma from their experiences. I take my 7 year old daughter to see a therapist once a week in hopes that she can recover from the trauma and pain of what she experienced on April 21st. David and I encourage her to talk openly about her feelings and what she saw on the turnpike that day. It is impossible to express how painful it is to watch my baby go through this. And I know that it’s different but trauma is trauma and I believe that we should do whatever it takes to reduce the trauma and stress and these children are going through. Beginning with not separating them from their parents. 

Finally, I have found that when these events happen to you, the mental health professionals are well equipped to help us through the trauma, grief, depression. All of it. No one can make me whole again. I know that. And my MH team has made this clear. But they can and have helped me navigate this hell so that I can function. If it’s only barely functional for now, I know that they are there and willing to do everything in their power to take the edge off. I want everyone to know that help is available. If you can’t find it message me and I will help you. No one should have to try to get through these things alone. 

Before and After

On April 21st of this year I began a very rapid, disorienting descent into the unique hell of losing a child. Cate was used to driving to my home in McAlester every other weekend so that she could accompany me and Lilly on our trip to Miami to visit my parents after my mom had a massive stroke and Daddy needed our support. This trip was different, we were staying in town and my friend Tracy offered to entertain Lilly for an while so Cate and I could have a beer and visit. I’m beyond grateful and a little puzzled by this deviation from the norm. I have trouble remembering any time recently that Cate and I were allowed to have just the two of us. Not that it mattered really. We had made so many trips as a trio and we were very satisfied with the dynamic. It was just such a treat to be able to have a couple hours of adult time with my oldest daughter. After having a beer or two and about a hundred photos we collected Lilly and went home. We spent the rest of the evening eating pizza and watching Desperate Housewives until we all fell asleep. I woke up early the next morning and went to get some good coffee and a coffee table book for Cate’s Birthday. After Cate and Cort moved into their new apartment she had been busy decorating and this book was perfect for her and her new home. I will forever remember with bittersweet memories how she reacted to receiving this early birthday gift. The rest of the morning was just typical for us, gathering Cate’s things and choosing the best outfit, etc. As we said our long goodbyes in my driveway it started to sprinkle and I give her a short, worn-out lecture about how the turnpike holds water in places. Slow down, don’t use cruise control on wet roads etc. A dozen or more I love you’s were exchanged and the last thing she says, in an effort to comfort Lilly who always hated to see her Sissy Cate leave, “I love you Lilly Bug. I’ll see you next weekend and we’ll do something fun”!
An hour later Lilly and I were driving down the turnpike to find her after we heard that she may have had an accident. Most of what follows is fuzzy and I will write about it another time.
After Cate’s memorial service I was obsessed with recovering every piece of her that I possibly could. Her phone and constant companion was destroyed in the accident so I found another device, wiped it clean and transferred everything she had saved on the cloud. Her Mac book was left at her apartment so her fiancé sent me all kinds of things he found on it. One of the most precious and heartbreaking being this partial entry that I suspect was an early draft for a blog that she had been talking about in recent months. I know that it was a rough draft and she never intended for anyone to read it in it’s current state but I am publishing it as it was written because while I am sure Cate Pearl in her earthly form would murder me for doing so, I am just as sure that her now perfect spirit form would want me to use whatever she left behind both for my comfort and because she always believed something good could result from suffering.

I have read this a million times. And I feel different every single time. The first time I was just overwhelmed with emotion to read it and did not evaluate it any further than just an emotional reaction to reading the words written by a dearly departed daughter.
Then as I started to read it again and again I was able to see different things. Her insight. Her love for her family. Her gift for seeing the very best in everyone else during a period of time that was a very selfish phase in my life. Her generosity was striking.
She knew me so well. Not a surprise to me. She took all of my secrets with her when she left this world. But I am still impressed with the accuracy with which she describes me and events surrounding this period of time when she was still in preschool.
Also, the way she writes about these events in such a positive way. She is essentially describing the dissolution of her parents marriage. Normally something that elicits only negative feelings and traumatic memories in children. A huge source of guilt for me her entire life. It was such a gift to read her perspective and feel somewhat absolved of this guilt. But it was always her nature to be generous and forgiving of everyone else’s flaws and mistakes. She was never so generous with herself.
And so when I read the last few lines I felt a whole new wave of guilt come over me. She talks about herself as if she was flawed somehow. I do not remember her this way. I thought she made friends easily. Always. I was not prepared to learn that she had such insecurities at such a young age. Cate always minimized her own pain in an effort to make others feel more comfortable, still I feel like I should have known. Like I had ignored something so fundamental out of a selfish need on my part to believe it and avoid any feelings of guilt or responsibility. As skilled as she was at convincing me that everything is just peachy, I was way too eager to accept it without question. “Everything is great mom, I’m totally fine!”
“But let me rewind to the beginning”
In only the fourth sentence she states that her birth would be “the last time she felt relaxed for the rest of her life”.
Cate wrote this less than a month before her accident. How did she know that she would not enjoy this state of relaxation in this lifetime? At nearly 23 did she assume that even though she would have (and should have) lived another 50 years that this feeling would always elude her? I can’t believe that she somehow knew that her life here was about to come to an end. If only we all possessed this acuity of insight. If only I had enough of it to sense her insecurities and address them instead of remaining blissfully ignorant. Likely it was just hyperbole but I will always wonder.