In the beginning, it was like running on fumes of adrenaline and distraction. In the initial time period when you lose someone, you have people checking in on you every week, every day, every second. But then, the check ins slowly go from every second, to every day, to every week, every month, and then time begins to pass, and the reality starts to set in that people begin to “forget” and sort of move on; but you’re not moving on. You’re never moving on.
You’ll never move on from a pain that shattered you in a way you never even knew you could be shattered. A pain that becomes a gap that will never actually be filled; and how can you rebuild from that?
When you’re little and you get hurt or you’re sad, the only thing in the world that can calm you and make everything better is that big, warm hug from your Mom or Dad; that hug where they wrap their arms entirely around you, and squeeze you until you can’t remember why you were ever sad.
That’s all I need now, that’s all I’ve needed for the last 5 years; but I’ll never get one of those hugs again.
This is how I’ve learned that the only person who can save me from myself, is me. If I was going to wait for that hug that would heal me, I’d be waiting the rest of my life. After you’ve dwelled in that painful darkness for so long, you find that you simply can’t stand to be there anymore, so the only thing to do is to pull yourself out.
In the beginning, I had so much going on that I was able to keep my mind busy and stay focused on so many other things. I had cheer, finishing my Master’s, planning a wedding and then getting married.
For years, the only way I was able to cope was by simply blocking it out. And as “bad” and unhealthy as it was, it was literally the only way that I was able to get through it. Any single moment where any thoughts about my parents began to creep in, it was, “Stop. Block it out, block it out, block it out”.
It’s almost like I completely erased them from my mind altogether. Not only the darkest times, like watching my Mom’s heartbeat race to 151bpm on the monitor and hear that machine beeping in my head, over and over again to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night without it pounding in my mind; or seeing my Dad for the first time after his surgery, with 75 staples across his skull. But it was the good times too. I couldn’t even picture their faces. Block it out, block it out.
In the very beginning, I was so emotionally destroyed that I was physically sick. My bedroom at my Mom’s house felt like it wasn’t mine anymore; it felt like I had never even lived there. The first time walking into that house without her there, was cold and cryptic. She was never coming home, so it felt like I shouldn’t be there either.
Every single thing I looked at was a gut wrenching reminder of what was, and what never will be again; the kitchen table, where I’d come home late and we’d have tea and stay up into the late hours of the night talking about anything and everything, as she’d magically solve all my problems – as she always did. She was the only one in the world that could make me belly laugh until I couldn’t breathe, over the most ridiculously hilarious things. The only one who understood me, and cared about all the weird and crazy and silly things about me, that no one else in the world cares about. The only one who could cheer me up, any time – anywhere. The kitchen counter, where we used to cook together and laugh at how shameful our cooking skills were. The phone, that she used to call me 45 times a day with; the one she used to answer my 45 calls in return, calling her for all types of crazy reasons, and for no reason at all.
If ever I was at work or missed her call, she’d leave a voicemail saying she was worried and to call her back as soon as I could, and that she loves me so much. I used to roll my eyes and get frustrated when she’d constantly check up on me.
Do you know what I’d do for her to check in on me just one more time?
One night the week after she died, I was drowning so deeply in a state of shock that I desperately sent her a text message, praying with everything I had left that she’d somehow miraculously respond. Obviously, she didn’t.
My Dad and I didn’t get to catch up as often because he was constantly traveling for work. Our phone calls were few and far between but the ones we had were gold. Each piece of advice he’d give me seemed as though it was taken directly from an inspirational novel. His life advice was like no other I’ve ever been given. He had a way of making me feel like no matter what, it’d all be okay. He was British, so every time I was hurt or upset – ever since I was a baby – he’d always pull me in close and squeeze me and say, “there, there, Daddy’s here”.
My two pillars of strength, solitude, clarity, love, inspiration – gone.
How do you come back from that?
I didn’t even consciously realize the way that I was handling it all, up until about two and a half years ago.
I got pregnant, and everything changed.
Getting engaged, planning a wedding and getting married were time periods that were indeed difficult with the absence of my Mom and Dad, as I’ve previously blogged about. But the insane rush of hormones and emotions that came with pregnancy and becoming a Mom, threw me into a whole other dimension.
When I was getting married, I found myself constantly looking up and looking for my parents. The night I got engaged, the first person I wanted to call when I took out my phone was my Mom, but I couldn’t. I imagined how loud she’d scream and how tight she’d squeeze me when I first showed her my ring.
Matt never had the chance to officially sit down and ask my Dad for his permission to marry me, but I knew he had my Dads blessing. About 6 months before my Dad died, we were driving in the car one day and he said to me,
“I have a lot of respect for Matt, I respect his integrity and who he is as a person. He takes good care of you and loves you, I can see it in the way he looks at you. Do you think you see yourself marrying him one day?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Good.”
It was a very sensitive topic – talking about the future – because we both knew that only one of us would be there to see it. It killed him to tell me he was sick in the beginning, and then when he had to ultimately sit me down toward the end to tell me that he was no longer responding to treatment, and that there was nothing left to do. He could barely bring his eyes up to look at me.
Now, as a parent, the thought of having to look my child in the face and tell them that I won’t be with them anymore is nothing short of crippling. My heart aches for him, I wish I could go back and tell him all that I know now, and tell him over and over that it’s okay; that it’s not his fault.
My Mom became ill so quickly that we never had any type of closure; no conversation about the future or any advice on how to put back together the million pieces that would be my soul and existence in the coming months. Our last conversation was on Monday, and as the words came out of her mouth, she started to cry for a split second but then pulled herself back together – to be strong for me, as always – and told me that she had at least 6 months and could possibly go into remission. She told me we would make tons of videos and she’d write me lots of letters to cherish. She told me she was “So sorry Aly, I’m so sorry”. But by the next day she was put on oxygen, and there were no more conversations.
I didn’t know then, that when we checked into the hospital, I’d be leaving without her.
When I found out I was pregnant, it was the first day of a long road back through a dark memory lane. But it wasn’t supposed to be that way.
When you find out you’re pregnant, you first start excitedly brainstorming on how to tell your family members – most importantly, your Mom. And this time, it was different than the feeling I had when I couldn’t call my Mom to tell her I was engaged; different from when she wasn’t there to button up my wedding dress or help me fix my veil.
It was needing her more, in one moment, than I’d ever needed her in my entire life.
When you find out you’re pregnant, you’re swallowed up by a range of emotions from crazy-excited to terrified, to optimistic to clueless; and on top of all that, I had this unsteady feeling take over me like the plague. And just like that, the flood gates that had been sealed so tightly, burst open and unleashed everything I had worked so hard to forget.
We had some complications during my pregnancy between 13 and 17 weeks (that’s a blog for another day) which caused extra, unnecessary anxiety. We chose to wait to announce the pregnancy until I was 5 months along, for this reason.
I spent each and every night, rubbing my belly, thanking God for another day with those sweet babies. I was blessed with not one, but two gorgeous baby showers, surrounded by my incredible friends and family. There were so many exciting things to do, like build the cribs and buy my very first baby clothes. It was all so exciting, but as always, something was missing. My biggest cheerleader wasn’t in my corner, like she had been, for each and every exciting milestone in my life.
Although these emotions became harder to manage during my pregnancy, it still wasn’t the worst it was going to get.
I remember the morning we were in the hospital, ready to have the babies, and I couldn’t stop thinking in my head, “You’re supposed to be here. I’m so terrified, and I need you here. Why can’t you be here.”
When I was in the room getting my spinal, I was so nervous that it felt like my brain was numb. The nurses were so incredibly sweet, trying to get me to relax as much as they possibly could.
“So, is your Mom so excited to be a Grandma?” one of the nurses asked, with a big smile on her face.
“My parents died a few years ago”.
Looking back, I feel so guilty that I said it so bluntly and so monotoned, but I truly couldn’t help it – I just blurted it out. I had no control over my mind or body in that moment because I was so nervous, it was like an outer body experience.
Her eyes darted over to the other nurse and her face dropped, as she quickly changed the subject. “You are going to be such an incredible Mommy, not much longer now and you’ll get to hold those beautiful babies in your arms!”.
I wasn’t mad or upset at her – how could I be? Most people still have their parents at 26 – heck, most people still have their parents at 40 – so it was a completely reasonable question.
To this day, I’ve gotten questions like that over a hundred times. “Your Mom must love those babies”, “Your Mom must be babysitting those babies every chance she gets”, etc. It’s tough, but it’s reality, and I try not to crush people’s souls in return when I tell them that she isn’t here; that she hasn’t gotten to spend one single minute with her Grandbabies. She watches over them from heaven, and visits them in their dreams, but that’s it.
The newborn days were really tough, but they kept me extremely busy and exhausted – too exhausted to even think. And looking back now, that was probably for the best. I was so exhausted in that first year that I didn’t even have enough energy to cry (that isn’t supposed to be as dramatic as it sounds, I’m just being honest – I was probably so tired and dehydrated that my body didn’t have enough energy to make actual tears).
When the girls were 7 months old I choked, like literally, on a prenatal vitamin (I continued to take prenatals for the duration of the time that I nursed them). The vitamin (which is like a horse pill – I know all of you Mama’s know what I’m talking about) somehow lodged sideways in my throat, and I was only getting a tiny amount of air in and out, it was like pinching a straw and sucking air through as hard as you could.
It was December 29th, 2016, the day the girls turned 7 months exactly. I had just posted a nice milestone post with a beautiful picture of them on Facebook. We were home alone, Matt was at work. The girls were crawling around on the living room floor and I was in the kitchen about to make dinner. It was 6:48pm. I remember this, because right before I threw my head back and popped the pill in my mouth, I glanced at the clock. Instantly I felt the pill lodge, to the point where the water I took with it spattered out of my mouth onto the floor. For whatever reason – most likely motherly survival instinct – I immediately ran out of the door and to my next door neighbors house to get help. I slammed on the door, praying it would open and there’d be someone home to help me.
One of my neighbors is a nurse, so I had faith and knew she’d know what to do. One of my neighbors slammed on my back as hard as he could. They tried giving me the heimlich, but nothing. It was nearly impossible to get any air in, and I knew that I didn’t have a ton of time before eventually passing out from lack of oxygen. I couldn’t speak to tell them that they couldn’t call Matt because he works in a prison and they don’t have access to their phones while at work. They frantically called 9-1-1.
It was a rainy, freezing day in December, and I was outside in a t-shirt and pajama pants, frantically pacing up and down the driveway, trying desperately to get into my own head to calm myself down and focus on getting as much air as I could into my lungs.
I hear the sirens from the firetruck and the ambulance. I turned my head to see them driving up the road, but then they turned into the wrong complex. My neighbor ran into the middle of the road waving his arms frantically, screaming for them, telling them they went the wrong way and to turn around.
In this very moment, I came to terms with the fact that it was over. I was on all fours in the freezing rain, about 50 feet diagonally from the open door to my house, where my babies were inside crawling around on the floor, with no one watching them. For a moment, everything went silent.
This was it. They went the wrong way, and there’s no time. I can’t breathe anymore. And this is how my Mom must have felt right before she died. My babies are only 7 months old, I barely had any time with them. And I’m leaving them. This is the fear my Mom felt, as she looked at me leaning over her in the hospital that night, squeezing her shoulders with tears streaming down my face. She was leaving her baby, and I was about to leave mine.
In the next moment, I heard, “Aly!?” as I looked up to see a firefighter running toward me, who happened to be one of Matt’s best friends. He instantly began doing everything he possibly could. He tried the heimlich a few times, at one point I was back down on all fours, spitting blood onto the ground; with all of the commotion and force from trying to get the pill to move, it was cutting the inside of my throat.
I kept motioning for him to cut open my throat to get the pill out. It sounds absolutely crazy as I look back on it now, but in that moment I was desperate to do anything it took to stay here and be with my babies. I remember thinking, if I pass out, I’m dead. I was working so hard to squeeze even an ounce of air through my throat; I knew that if I passed out there would be no oxygen passing through to my lungs, and that would be it.
I was rushed to the hospital, and given an IV of muscle relaxers. When we first got there, I had to write on a piece of paper anything I was trying to communicate. I did everything in my power not to swallow, because every time I did, the pill would become more lodged. The muscle relaxer helped make it so I swallowed less and less.
After two hours of struggling, leaping off of the hospital bed in fear and praying to God, the vitamin had slowly dissolved more and more to the point where I was able to get a substantial amount of air in and out. Matt was notified and he eventually made it to the hospital. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he turned the corner.
This was a turning point for me. A major, life-changing turning point.
Coming to terms with dying isn’t something that a lot of people go through, especially at such a young age. It’s almost like once you accept it, it’s difficult to come back from that.
When I came home from the hospital I cradled my babies in my arms like I hadn’t seen them in years. The next day, Matt had to work so I was alone again. And it was different. My mindset was completely different, and everything just seemed darker. I remember looking up at the wall at all the happy photos and thinking, this isn’t real, I’m not supposed to be here. I couldn’t stop crying on and off for days, the tears just kept coming. My birthday was a couple days later and I didn’t even want to acknowledge it.
I’m one of those people that never, ever stops looking for the sunrise; that without-fail always finds the good in everything, the light in everything. I’m that person that says, “You’re just lucky to have another day on this beautiful planet”. But this time, I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I pick myself back up from this? Where was the adrenaline that I had when my parents died? I remember thinking, how much can one person take? And I remember looking at those babies and thinking, my God, I am immeasurably blessed beyond reason, and I got a second chance – all I wanted was to come back home to them and here I am. So why can’t I come back from this?
Once you’ve experienced so much darkness, it becomes harder and harder to come back from it. The energy and motivation to pick yourself up becomes more and more difficult to find. When I lost my parents, that time in my life took a part of my soul with it. A huge part. But I was able to keep going. But this time, the darkness hit me directly. This time, I didn’t have to be strong in a situation where the tragedy struck someone else and I had to pick up those pieces. This time, it struck me personally.
Once again, she wasn’t here. They weren’t here. I needed her to come down and stay with me for a few days, until I was able to eat solid food again and get back on my feet. I needed her to sit with me on the couch, cry with me, sip tea with me and share her scariest experience, telling me how she got through it and that I’d get through this too. I needed one of those life talks from my Dad, and for him to tell me how grateful he was that I was okay and that he loved me more than anything.
But none of that happened. And once again, I had to mentally heal myself. That support system is gone, and has been gone for all of these important things in my life that I needed them for. That does something to a person over time. You work overtime to stay strong for so long, but at some points, you just can’t do it anymore.
Some say that it gets easier with time. And I can agree to a point – not necessarily that it gets easier but, like I’ve mentioned, it becomes more manageable. But I also think this depends on what happens after.
When you become a Mom yourself, that doesn’t mean you stop needing your own Mom. In my opinion, you need your Mom more.
As a Mother now, I’ve found myself becoming more and more bitter over time that she, they, aren’t here. For the longest time it was sadness and healing. But as time passes and the more times I find myself needing to call her or pack my bags to go spend the weekend with her and I can’t, it’s just anger; every Mother’s day, every holiday, every milestone, every happy moment missed, I find myself on the verge of tears just asking, why? Why can’t you be here. I need you, here.
I am an extremely happy, positive, optimistic person. I have so much to be grateful for. I am indescribably grateful for each and every blessing in my life. I move forward every single day for those beautiful little angels that look up at me every morning. I am a Mother first, before anything else. But I am also human, and it’s okay for us to not be okay sometimes. It’s okay for things to be imperfect. Sure, we’re all grateful and we all count our blessings and do the best we can – of course we do – but it’s okay to exhale and identify the demons in our closets every now and then.
Although in the beginning I found it more manageable to completely block it all out, maybe it’ll be best in the long run that I’m just now identifying the pain and reality, and perhaps it’s just going to take a while to manage and overcome it in a more mentally healthy way.
August and November are and always will be difficult months for me. It’s like a never ending crippling flashback that plays twice a year, every single year. It never helps that my Mom’s passing anniversary always falls around Thanksgiving, and this year – on Thanksgiving. Years 1 + 2 were a chaotic blur. Years 3 + 4 were years of transition. And here we are, year 5.
5 years ago, I stood at the edge of your grave as they lowered you into the ground. I stood there in that moment, surrounded by a crowd of people, yet I had never felt so alone. I stood there in disbelief, wondering what tomorrow would bring, if there would even be a tomorrow.
Today, I stand at the edge of your grave, holding my sweet babies hands as they place flowers down for you. They don’t understand yet. They don’t realize that the most important person in my life, lies before them; a person that they’ll never get to know, except through stories and pictures. A person who’s painting will only be created by the colors I share with them. When they’re older, I’ll tell them all about you; all about the 23 incredible, loving, fulfilling, beautiful years we had.
5 years ago, I felt so lost and defeated. Today, I stand here surrounded by love and warmth; with the two little blessings you sent down to me, who have turned my world upside down in the most beautiful way.
I’ll never stop talking about you, Mom. I’ll never stop reaching for my phone to call you. You’re always on my mind and in my heart. I feel you all around me – always. I’m sorry we’re missing out on all of the things we used to love. I’m sorry you can’t be here to snuggle your sweet Grandbabies. I’m sorry our time was cut so short. I’ll never stop being strong for you; year 5 or year 25.
Here’s to year 5 being the strongest year yet – just for you.
Choose . Happy 