Counting the Days

431 days. 10,344 hours. 620,640 minutes. 37,238,400 seconds. That is how long it has been since my daughter has been gone. Funny how we parents of deceased children count days, minutes, hours and even seconds now. Time. We have so much of it now. So much of it has passed and so much of it is yet to come. I have been through two birthday one Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter as well.

Holidays are fast approaching again. They either welcome me with happy thoughts, or with tears and hesitation. In those 431 days that I have lived without my youngest daughter, I have been through so many emotions. I have not wanted to get out of bed. I have not wanted to even shower. I wanted to hide from people, places and things. I have had days where I had to force myself out of bed and out into the sunshine. I have had to remind myself to eat and sometimes, have failed at that. But the one thing I did not need a reminder for, nor have I failed to remember is that my daughter is dead. I can say that now without breaking apart. It took a while, but I am here.

At first, I thought maybe they confused her with another person who resembled my daughter. That did not work. I wanted to believe that she was just on a trip and would be home soon. That did not work either. I had to be the bravest I have ever been in my life to wake each day, find purpose and go on...one child less...and live. I had to work harder to see good in the everyday of life. I had to remind myself that there is rain, but also sunshine. There is darkness, and there will be light. I had to pull myself and my heart up and out of a bottomless pit of horror, pain and sadness. I had to learn to trust again, to feel again and to walk into the land of the living again.

It was NOT easy. To this day, I still struggle. I still have those little moments when I don't try hard NOT to think and the memory of my daughter being gone sneaks in. I cry..silent tears. I let them fall. I grieve. Then, I look up and tell her how much I love her. This has not been easy, but I am doing it..one day at a time. I remember walking past her box I had in the basement. Her belongings from her apartment. That is all I had left of my wonderful funny intelligent wise cracking little girl now. A red rubbermaid tub of her things. Everthing that I did not give to her sisters is in there. Her old college notes and books...makeup...hairbrush...jewelry... lotions... perfumes... pony tail holders... shoes... coat... jacket...her favorite Bulls jersey... college bookbag... pictures she had of her daughter and also of her small life....small remnants of a short lived life, but enough of them left behind that I don't want to loose.

I look over her handwriting and trace it sometimes. I read her thoughts she put down on the paper in the notebook...shopping lists, poetry. She kept things I had made for her and then some things I just made but never threw away. I always wondered where those things went. Now I know. She held onto them. I have those too, again. It took me awhile to just sort through her things and end up with these keepsakes in the red plastic tub. I can't tell you how many times I walked past that box in the past year. It was a glaring reminder of what I had, and what I had lost. Of who she was, and who she was on her way to becoming.

Just four short months ago, I forced myself to go through it and find her things a more permenant place. The smell of her hit me when I lifted that lid. If I were to close my eyes, I could swear to you she was right there with me. I broke down right there and then. I looked at the hair in her brush and smelled it and it smelled just like her. It reminded me of when she was a little girl and I would braid her hair for school or put it up in two pig tails. Her things are safely tucked away and I will not part with them. I have a few items put away for her little girl. When she is older. When she wants to know what her mom was like, I can show her.

I will let her see the hairbrush....smell the lotions and perfumes, look at the makeup and then pull the pictures out and begin to tell her a story..which will lead to another one, so that she can know her mom. I will probably cry that day, when it comes. I am sure we will laugh...but more importantly, we will love my daughter, her daughter...my grand daughter and I...and I will be seen as her mom's mom. I won't be grandma that day, I will be a mother who loved her daughter very much..and misses her that much more.