How Bad It Really Still Is, Missing My Girls I Must Tell It Options

[Ann H]

I am living a lie by saying the pain is so much better and that it is getting easier living without my girls. I am just short of telling a lie when I say I don't cry as much. No, the tears don't come as often but that's because most of the time I hold them back. Yes, the pain is better than it was at first but not that much, it still hurts and it hurts a lot.

I have tried to be strong and help everyone here at LS. But sometimes I would really like to say help me I am hurting so much I can't stand it. The pain wont leave me alone for very long and I think I am losing my mind. My life will never be the same no matter how much time passes. I find it hard to smile and laugh like I once used too even though the smiles are coming more often.

Three short months and yet so very long months have gone by since my Snookie left this world. I miss her so much and the tears are ever in the back of my eyes waiting to escape. I want to pound my pillow and scream out Snookie's name and beg God to give her back to me well and whole without sickness or disease. Sometimes moan and groans still excape my lips when I think Clair is asleep. Sleep is still hard to come by but now at least I am able to eat once again.

I want to declare that my world has fallen out from under me and I am living under a veil of sadness and longing. Along with that sadness is a feeling a hopelessness that just maybe the pain will always feel so bad even though it has lessened somewhat.

I want to scream that since losing Snookie and Chili Bean that the days are hard and the nights are even harder though they are slightly less painful than the first couple of months were. Everywhere I go I have memories of them going with me.

My thoughts dwell on my little girl Snookie Cookie and also upon Chili Bean. I pray for strength to carry on in a world that does not contain as much happiness as it once did. I tell everyone here that the pain lessens but I don't say it still rocks me to my core and still almost takes me to my knees. That there is still a lump in my throat that makes it hard to swallow.

I thought about leaving but I have come to love everyone here. I want to help ease the pain of others to let them know how much we care. Yet at the same time I need help too and you have all been so wonderful to me.

I did not want to feel I had to hold back what I really thought. I thought instead of trying to run away and hide and not let anyone know how much it still hurts, that I would write this post that tells how I am really feeling. I wanted to say what is in my broken shattered heart.

I know without a doubt that I will see my babies again and that does give me comfort. But I miss them so very much and the pain is still great. Oh God if I could just hold them one more time on this earth. But that can never be and it breaks my heart for all of us.
Ann

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[ShelbysMom]

Dear Ann and AbbysMommy,

I am so very sorry you are still in such torment, but you are doing the right thing by expressing it honestly and thoroughly. I believe it is the only way to work through it. You are having such a hard time and my heart goes out to you. You both felt so deeply connected to your girls. And Ann your two girls both died so close together--that would compound the grief and the grieving process many times over for anyone, let alone someone like you who felt so deeply for her loved ones. You both must have so many holes and empty spaces in your lives right now that it must be like learning to live all over again. I know it is SO painful, and it has still really not been a very long time since your tragedies happened!!! I wish I knew something comforting to say that would help but I know all I can say is I sympathize.

I don't know if this will be helpful to you or not but this thread made me remember an image I had after Shelby died that was a turning point for me: Do you remember the scene in the end of the movie "Titanic" where the Kate Winslet character lets go of the dead body of her beloved and watches him sink into the ocean so she can free herself to swim to the lifeboat and save herself? She has almost made up her mind to die there with him but he is already gone and she is not and has a chance to save herself if she lets him go? After Shelby died and I was staggering around feeling sick and weak from not eating or sleeping and crazed with grief and guilt and wishing I were dead and not taking care of myself or my daughter, that scene from that movie came into my mind. Then and there, I told Shelby that I loved her and cherished her memory and was sorry to have to let go but that I had to or this grief was going to kill me. It felt almost cold-hearted, like some survival-instinct thing. First, through blinding tears I food down my throat bit by choking bit. Then I gathered up all the photos, the dog bed, the collar, etc. and put them away in the garage, crying and apologizing to her the whole time: "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I love you, I will always love you, but I can't keep going like this. Please forgive me." I cleared away all her things and vowed I would not torment myself with missing her or with the horror of her passing any more than I could help. I literally forced myself, against my will, back into the land of the living, much like I forced myself, against my will, to bring her to the vet to be euthanized when I was convinced a painful end was near. Now, maybe this is just yet another example of me being my impulsive and erractic self, and I'm not saying this "cured" me or anything but I *know* it was some kind of turning point somehow, and I am convinced that scene from Titanic has a lot of validity in it for anyone facing loss. Believe me, I still live every day with a large sickening hole in my heart but I just figure this is the way life is going to be from now on so I am learning how to be a person who has a hole in her heart and I can do this. But I found had to eventually let go of that toxic brand of grief that was slowly sinking me and that was how I started doing it.

I know everyone's journey is different. Just please make sure you are not punishing yourselves or grieving for other reasons beyond your darlings. Please love and be good to yourselves as you have been so loving and good to so many people seeking comfort on this site (including me). But beyond that, I can only admire your profound capacity for love and attachment, and wish you strength and courage and comfort as you continue your journey through grief and learn to live without you darlings. May comfort begin to find you soon.

Love,

Susan