Well I should have known it couldn't leave without kicking and screaming its way out. I am sick.
So for the first New Year's day in probably 15 years now I cannot spend New Year's with my best friend Kathie. Doesn't feel like anything drastic but I don't dare expose her or her sister or her husband to anything because these days you just don't know. So we will sit home alone - quarantined for the next 10 days I guess. So now 2020 has officially hijacked New Year's Day 2021!
Today, for some unknown reason has been a very down day. Its dismal outside but it was dismal inside as well. Knowing I can't go to Kathie's like I have done for years has not helped but actually I think I'm okay with that. Seems like we have had weeks of hoopla because Christmas was celebrated in several small gatherings so it kind of dragged on and I'm a little tired.
I've been reading a novel which is not usually my cup of tea. Not much of a fiction lover but this is based on real events and I felt like I needed some down time reading. It was a very good book but the subject matter was very sad and depressing and as it turns out I don't think that was what I needed right now. The book was about a children's home in Tennessee that stole children and adopted them out to wealthy and powerful families, politicians, movie stars for a huge profit. It was called "Before We Were Yours" By: Lisa Wingate. The characters and details of their lives were fictitious but the premise of the story was true. The Children's home was real. The woman behind the baby brokering business was real. The stories of cruelty, neglect, molestation and even murder were real. It was a depressing, sad and horrific account and an eye opening realization of how cruel and horrible people can become for money. It also cements the reality that as bad as the world is today - it has been just as bad in times past. People have committed inhumane atrocities for profit and power throughout the pages of history. But it was not a light read by any stretch of the imagination and this was not a good time to read it.
This has sure been a horrific year and I am glad to see it go however, the realist in me will not allow me to be overly enthusiastic about 2021 taking its place. Too much lying in wait to believe that it is all going to magically get better. Like we were going to wake up this morning and the virus will have disappeared overnight, all of our civil liberties and personal freedoms will have been restored, all of the businesses that have been bankrupted by this will have revived, people will want to work again and we will not be living with the threat of socialism and communism looming large on the horizon. We will be living once again in the land of the free in a United States that I recognize. And all will be sunshine and daisies.
And as bad as this year has been and it has been like none other in history, I mentioned this morning to my husband that it is not the worst year we've ever seen. And although I have always known that I would never get over losing a child - you say that without really knowing what that truly means. And even after it happens you hope and pray that you were wrong. That some day that pain would let up and you could live a normal life again. All you have to compare it to is other, less horrific losses. The grief was bad. There was sadness and months and months of crying and guilt and sleepless night but then life began to slowly come back. Days looked brighter. You laughed. Life continued. You still missed the person you lost but you lived with the loss, remembered them with laughter and fond memories. And you picked back up and you lived again. So there is no way I could have imagined that 6 1/2 years would go by so quickly and that I would still be crying. That I could still find it hard now to look at their pictures, that I would still be haunted by the unknowns of what happened and why. Almost seven years. That would have been far too much to live with had I known that in the beginning so I am glad I didn't know this then.
However, today it no longer scares me because I realize with "acceptance" that it will always be. Some days are better than others and I understand now that "some days" is the best I can hope for. And I understand now that some days it will always hurt. Some days it will be unbearable. Some days I will cry. Some days it will be like it is brand new again and some days it will be unbelievable. And I know now that those days will always be with me. This is not something I will ever, ever get over. I will live with it and the pain will not be as sharp. I will cry but alone and controlled and not as often. I will wake up in total disbelief, but I will quickly recover and realize it has been like waking from a dream.
I have finally come to the realization that this is life now and that's just how it is. It will never go away. How could it? How naive of me to have ever believed that it could.
I don't know how much the shame and secrecy contribute to that fact but I'm sure they don't help. Perhaps if I could have grieved them openly, received love and support like normal people, if I could have been able to talk about them or hash out the confusion and anger and mystery or bounce my thoughts off someone, get feedback, miss them out loud, perhaps if I could speak of my children to people I meet like a normal person or perhaps if I had a socially acceptable answer to: "what happened?" instead of hiding my hurt and hiding the most horrific tragedy a mother could live through, hiding my children --all of them and the details of our life because I don't know how to answer: "How many children do you have?" If I say three, they ask conversation starter questions - where do they live, what do they do? Are they married do they have kids? If I say two, I feel horrible. If I say three and one has died, they ask what happened. So, I avoid all talk of my children and feel as though I am living a lie at all times. I feel guilty like I am rejecting or abandoning my living children like I am not claiming them, bragging on them, talking about their lives. And keeping secrets will eat you alive. How can I possibly make friends or get to know people when I have the worst tragedy in my life that has to remain untold. They cannot ever "know" me, and I feel like I'm living a lie, not being true to myself, not even being myself. Not at all living authentically and am not a "surface" person. If I feel comfortable enough to tell them anything I begin to feel judged. I start reading stuff into little slights and feeling as if they are treating me differently now. It is changing me. It is making me a loner. Making me not want friends because it is too hard. I can't be me so how real can a relationship with them be anyway. I am sure that the nature of the situation has had a great deal to do with why I am still where I am. And just like 2021 can't erase the tragedies of 2020 nothing can ever erase the tragedies of 2014
