The Rock

I made the mistake recently of searching grief on Pinterest.  Now Pinterest fills my feed with poems and quotes about grief.  Right beside the memes and barn doors I normally search.  This poem was right at the top.  It describes what one part of my day is like.  I could not have written it any better myself.

Silent Tears

Each day as evening starts to set

The ache builds in her chest

She knows that she must go to bed

And try to get some rest

She hugs her tearstained pillow close

When no one is around

And cries for one she loved and lost

And screams without a sound

Others see her in the day

And think she’s doing well

But every day as evening sets

She enters her own hell

Time hasn’t healed her pain at all

Or quieted her fears

So every night, alone in bed

She sheds those silent tears

~KP

I have mentioned my witching hours before.  When Hayley was an infant she would start screaming her head off at 4:00 p.m. every single day and continue to be the most unhappy baby on the planet.  Shortly after 7:00 p.m. it would just stop for no explainable reason and our little sunshine was back.  Nothing we did or didn’t do started it or stopped it.  It just was.  Just as we had done the first time she horrified us by having projectile poop, we rushed her to our pediatrician.  Just like when we told him something was broken in her digestive track, he told us this was something that happened to some infants and that she would outgrow it.  It was at this visit that after examining 4 month old Hayley he turned to us and said “you two are in for it, this one is going to be a handful”.  We looked at the little angel who was already sitting up on her own.  How do you know?  He said I have seen thousands of infants in my career and I can always predict which ones will be stubborn, outgoing and spirited.  He said watch this.  He showed her the shiny end of his stethoscope while also moving a popsicle stick with an Elmo sticker on it around in front of her.  No matter how hard he tried to distract her with the stick she would not give up on trying to get a hand on the stethoscope.  He explained, that single minded attention at 4 months was not average.  We found a new and even more wonderful pediatrician when we moved to the Eastside, but I have always wished that I had found him and told him how incredibly correct he was.

Ironically my witching hours start at the same time as baby Hayley.  When 4:00 rolls around I find myself starting to feel even more exhausted, emotional, tears come easily and the pain starts to ratchet up.  This goes on until I finally can go to sleep usually between 11:30 and 3:00.  My grief counselor helped me talk through why this time might be worse than others.  I didn’t miss her any more than every other minute during the day.  It is because as parents this late afternoon through bedtime, that is when we were truly “on duty” most of our children’s lives.  That was the time that we picked them up from daycare after work.  That was the time school and activities ended for the day and all the birds were back in the nest for dinner.  Of course as they get older sports, activities and friends kept them busy from the time they woke up until they went to sleep.  But still there is something about the sun setting and the world going dark that would make you hyper focused on your children.  When it is dark your parental instinct to protect increases.  Maybe it goes back to the days of the caveman.  Their children were probably more likely to be prey after dark.  It was a matter of physical survival to have them in the cave when the sun set.

Most recently Hayley would generally be coming home from work around that time.  I would be waiting for her in the front room and we would each take a red leather chair before she went to change her clothes.  She would tell me about her day and usually take the remote from me and change it from CNN to one of her many favorite shows.  Most of the time it was one of the reality shows about little people.  She loved them.  When she was at Western Washington University, she was always in her dorm room in the late afternoon.  I would always hear from her around 4:00 before she went to dinner.  As many of you have gathered Hayley and I were close.  Close in a way that is not generally the norm among teen daughters and their mothers.  Hayley would call me between classes to say hi.  We would face time when I was home.  Sometimes she would face time me from dinner or another activity so I could also say hi to her roommate or other friends.  We never went more than 2-4 hours without some type of communication.  I didn’t really notice this until it was gone.  I still find myself checking my phone.  I briefly think if I don’t respond quickly she will give me a hard time.  The messages are not there.  She had become an independent and wonderful student.  She didn’t need anything most of the time, we just had to communicate.  Prior to college we had never been away from each other for more than a week.  That week was one time when she went to Mexico with a friend’s family at the end of Freshman year.  She wasn’t a big lover of sleep overs.  She tried.  But I would always end up having to go get her at about midnight.  Once she could drive, she would say, bye I am going to a sleep over.  Both Scott and I would laugh at her and say “see you about 11”.  She would leave in a huff.  But always came home before midnight with a big smile on her face and threatening us not to say a word.  We would say, glad you are home, good night and love you more.  Sometimes I would poke her and say things like, nice try, maybe next time or did you forget your sleeping bag.  This girl was a homebody.  She went out, she socialized but she was very picky about it.  Her favorite place in the world was home.  Her second favorite place was her bed in her room with her dvr.

Let me tell you about one of the films that go through my head during the witching hours.  I am in that time right now as I write this. The films are a combination of thoughts, questions and images.  It has been 119 days since I had a conversation with her.  She was laying on my bathroom floor.  I had helped her shower on a stool and she had to crawl out of the shower and lay on the floor because of how badly she felt.  She knew Scott and I were exhausted.  She kept apologizing for being sick.  This made me mad at myself that she felt she needed to apologize.  I told her not to do that.  I snapped out of my stupor briefly to tell her that I absolutely adored her at all times.  When I put her to bed I sat on the stool on the side and held her hand.  I have a photo on my phone of my view at that moment; our hands, her washcloth covered face, her new bedding, the new artwork above her bed that said “HOME”.  She couldn’t handle having anyone lay on the bed.  Who would know that was her last night.  I will regret forever telling her to try to let us sleep.  To only call us if things got worse or she threw up.  I wish I had stayed with her for every last minute that she was conscious.  I wish that I had stayed that next night at the hospital and let Henry take care of himself and the dogs on his own.  But the room only had space for one of us to stay.  I felt safe.  I felt she was safe.  Scott needed to stay and watch over her.  She was in ICU, they now finally knew what was wrong and the best doctors would take care of her.  If it was a truly critical situation they would not have let me leave, right?  Someone would have told us.  One of the dogs had hurt himself that morning trying to get to the paramedics.  I needed to check on him.  I should have sat on a chair all night so that I was there when she woke and said over and over “Call Mom”.  I wasn’t there when she was the most scared.  I was not there when she left the conscious world.  When my friend and I got there, within in a handful of minutes, I watched her die.  I saw her naked body on the bed as a nurse performed chest compressions.  I screamed her name over and over as Scott restrained me from getting to her, the voice of reason, let them do their job.  I thought if she heard me and knew I was there everything would be okay.  I lost control of my bladder as I made animal sounds and kicked and scratched Scott to try to get to her.  I truly believe that she waited until I got there.  It happen so fast.  It was July 18th at 2:09 am.  I know this not because I looked at the clock, but because my pacemaker recorded the event for me to see in black and white.  I have a print out that shows my heart’s reaction to her leaving me.  It was 2:09 am.  If I fall asleep early it seems I always wake up around 2 am.  Once I am awake of course being 46 years old, I have to go pee.  When I go pee, I wake up more.  When I wake up and it is 2:00 am I am alone with my thoughts.  This is one of the most common reels that my mind plays for me at night.  Believe it or not there are some that are equally traumatizing.

I learned that you never take a day for granted.  You never assume that modern medicine is perfect.  The dog could have waited.  Henry could have gone to a friend’s.  But you know what, my mom was coming to town, I needed to clean up my house.  I knew I was going back to the hospital around 4 or 5 am in order to make sure I was there for rounds.  I knew I wouldn’t be coming home until she did so I felt the compulsive need to make sure everything was in order.  I felt it had to be me to do it right.  But I was wrong so wrong.  Our house is always a mess, cluttered.  None of that mattered.  In fact the dog was not fixable, hundreds of dollars in vet bills tells me this.  He continues to use only three of his legs most of the time.  He is a constant reminder of that day and what was going on when he hurt himself.  He sleeps at my feet every night or curled up against my back or the back of my knees.  When I have a sliver of my sense of humor surface I refer to him as “tripod”.

The witching hours are brutal.  But every minute of every day is difficult.  It is just that during the day there are times and activities that make it easier to hide the silent tears.  I hate to say this because I know you will read and be thinking, I have told her to call me any time, I told her we are here for her.  But honestly I am telling the truth when I say it does not even occur to me to call at these dark times.  I have this strong maybe misplaced desire to protect everyone from my pain.  I really like getting the texts, emails and messages of support.  Just knowing it is there is a life raft in a sea of tears.    I know I will eventually ask you for that support.  I can feel it coming as I become more and more weak.  Unable to control the emotion, unable to hide the pain and the rock in the pit of my stomach gets heavier.  There are a handful of people that I have chosen to bear some of the rock’s weight for me.  I know I can call and cry.  My bottom is when I say to them “I can’t do this”.  Sometimes I will say, “Henry doesn’t really need me”.  I am ashamed when I do.  I know he does, what I mean is he just won’t ever need me the way she did.  When I say I can’t do this, what a stupid thing to say.  What do I mean?  Am I going to leave, am I going to end the pain? No, Hayley would never forgive me.  So when I can’t do this, I mean I can’t bear this pain right now.  At that moment the rock is too heavy for me to carry.  I can no longer show my pain in front of Scott.  He can’t, he just can’t.  We are opposites in how we express ourselves, how we deal with emotion.  It hurts that I can’t, but if I am honest I couldn’t handle seeing him cry too.  I have witnessed his grief and it is unbearable.  It is like seeing my own pain reflected back at me.  They say the divorce rate is very high for couples that lose a child. I can understand.  Seeing your pain reflected back at you every day takes strength and commitment to navigate.

This past weekend I attended the Holiday Bazaar at our high school.  My oldest friend joined me.  She seems to know when she needs to come and give me a few hours.  She does this even though she lives 45 minutes away, works full time, has three kids and two dogs.  As we wandered the halls, the booths disguised the fact that I was at the school.  I volunteered a lot at the school.  I was there often manning tables at lunch.  Hayley would joke about how mortifying it was to see me at school.   I knew she lied because she always acknowledged me, she sat with me, she even asked for bathroom passes when she knew I was there.  On Saturday I stared at the student store.  She spent a semester there, her last semester senior year.  I was thrilled that she spent this time with another mom that I grew to admire and love.  Hayley was spending time around another strong female role model.  I would sit at my table and see her in the student store from my view.  On Saturday the store looked the same, the same woman was there waiting to hug me.  It felt surreal.  We ran into the school janitor.  She was someone I really got to know during my time hanging out at the school.  I know about her taking care of her ailing mom.  I knew when her mom was not going to make it.  Hayley always made a point to see her when many students don’t see the staff that keeps a school running, they blend into the background.  Hayley greeted her every day.  She was working Saturday.  I went to say Hi.  I could tell immediately from the tone of her greeting she did not know about Hayley.  I hugged her and while I held her I told her Hayley is gone.  She didn’t understand, she pulled away, I think briefly she thought I meant she was at college.  I had to say bluntly, Hayley died.  She immediately teared up and I had to go.  I felt bad, I had dropped a bomb on her and then left her to continue to do her job.  I told her I would seek her out in the next couple of weeks.  My friend and I continued.  I noticed on the walls above the lockers were framed photos of teams from over the years.  We were at 2011.  I almost frantically followed the frames until I found the one of the dance team 2012-2013, her freshman year.  There she was in the top row, fourth from the right.  I started to cry.  Many of the people that have reached out to me were there.  They seemed sincerely happy to see me.  I was surprised that I was happy to see them too.  For no other reason than I thought it would be awkward or when they say how are you, I wouldn’t know how to answer.  My advice is to always answer as honestly as you can.  Of course I don’t say in public with Christmas music overhead from the student band that I am barely surviving and am in the depths of hell.  But I don’t say the automatic “good” any more.  I might say Ok, but usually the honest answer is “as good as I can”.  Last week was constant crying.  That hour of hugs and greetings gave me a small shot of strength.  It reminded me that a lot of people care even when you feel so very alone.  Hugs are fuel.  I no longer pull away.  I have thrown the “rules” out the window.  I will hug as long as it feels ok.  If it gets weird I end it.

The rock I am carrying around is so very heavy right now.  It feels like it is growing every day.  Maybe I have been numb some of the first 119 days.  I know I was the first 4 weeks.  I got through a candlelight vigil, a memorial service with over 500 people, started a blog and a website, created a legacy for Hayley and put it on a bracelet.  I must have been numb because I cannot imagine doing any of those things right now.  Grief is all of the love you had for that person.  It is the love that has nowhere to go right now.  So it manifests itself into pain, guilt, regret, sadness, depression, anger, denial, anguish, headache, misery, sorrow, bleakness, darkness, agony, and bitterness.  All of these emotions form this heavy rock that makes your body feel so very heavy. You are exhausted carrying it around.  It has jagged edges.  If you are not careful, if you come upon a trigger of a memory those jagged points will cut you and make you cry.  So you move and navigate very carefully.  You withdrawal.  You isolate yourself.  I have spent many of these 119 days sitting on the couch as motionless as possible.  Hoping if I don’t think, if I don’t move, it won’t hurt.  I could do this because Scott was home.  He didn’t need to sit still, he needed to keep busy.  He could give rides and go to the store.  He has been my crutch.  Tomorrow he has to return to work.  I know he has so much anxiety about it, I feel helpless.  I feel guilty that I don’t have a job.  I don’t even have any prospects of a job.  My job right now is to keep breathing.  So I will have to move off the couch this week.  A new puppy a week ago has had me moving more than probably all the prior weeks combined.  So the rock is going to be jostled and tossed around.  I can only hope that it will be like rocks and glass in the ocean.  As items gets tossed around in the sea the jagged edges become smooth.  Smooth edges would really help.

I will end this post with another Hayley memory that just came to me as I was considering the Rock metaphor.  Remember where this started, the infant that didn’t sleep much and was stubborn.  That never changed.  She always has been unique and did things her way regardless of social norms.  She must have been about 18 months old when she found a rock in our Snoqualmie Ridge yard.  Trust me this was not hard as all of the land there was covered in rocks, making planting a yard a challenge.  The rock was about the size of her little hand.  Even then she had beautiful hands.  Not cute chubby toddler hands, but long graceful fingers and a firm, confident grip.  When it was time to go to bed, she didn’t want a special blanket or stuffed animal or even a toy.  She wanted her rock.  She went to sleep with a rock in her hand.  Just one.  Didn’t have to be the same rock.  She would bring them in and out of the house daily.  I was telling a coworker about her rock habit.  As a first time mother it drove me nuts to think of a dirty rock being in her clean crib with the clean sheet and her clean hands.  What if she put it in her mouth?  What if she got dirt in her mouth?  What if an animal had peed or crapped on that rock?  It was not like I could disinfect the rock every night.  We would try to talk her out of it but the tantrum that might trigger had us giving in very quickly.  I would try to sneak back into her room later and try to pry the rock out of her grip.  I gave this up when she would wake up and think it was morning cause why else would Mommy wake me up.  And those were long nights.  My coworker laughed.  I told her about the rock collection I had bought her.  It was a little plastic case with dividers that contained shiny, smooth, quartz and minerals.  They were labeled and were meant to encourage little geologists every where.  In fact that only got given away in the last 4 years.  I thought this would satisfy her rock fetish.  She suggested I give Hayley one of the shiny pretty rocks.  Nope, I can’t they can fit in a toilet paper tube.  She might swallow it while she slept.  About a week later she left a gift on my desk. It was a shiny, polished rock.  It was brown.  It kind of looked like petrified poop.  But it was the perfect size.  It was the exact size of Hayley’s little hand.  Plus, it could be cleaned!  Heck, it could go through the dishwasher.  I brought it home and presented Hayley with her brand new “night-night rock”.  She loved it.  It fit perfectly.  She slept holding that rock for many years.  I know that the rock is currently sitting in her jewelry box in her closet in her room.  I can only hope that my rock will fit in my hand some day.