So here we are. Nearing the dreaded day. Just five days from Ariella’s Yahrzeit (the Hebrew date anniversary of following the death). Got the reminder email a couple days ago, like I need a reminder to remember the date that my life ended. Even if I wasn’t thinking about it, my body just feels it. I still cry daily, but these past couple of weeks have been brutal. I cry at everything and nothing. Riding to Coldplay on the Peloton yesterday morning and tears were streaming down my face for most of the ride. This morning on a ride This is Me from The Greatest Showman had me in tears. The lyrics for one, but also because Ariella loved that movie. I have no idea how many times she watched the movie but that music was our soundtrack to life for a while. Images again are flashing in my mind of Ariella in the ICU. It’s been almost a year and the pain isn’t any less and the memories and images are just as vivid. The pain will never lessen. It’s learning to live with the pain and the loss. And I still don’t want to. I don’t think I will ever be at peace or content. And living like this is miserable. I’m not so worried about coronavirus because I wouldn’t care if it took me. I don’t care about not leaving the house, not being able to go places because it’s easier to be at home. At home I’m not confronted with the happy lives and perfect intact families of everyone else. At home I can escape life.
I am not in a good place. Really I haven’t been in a good place since May 9, but I’m back to where I was in the days immediately following. I actually think I’m in an even darker place now. Life just feels so dark and bleak and empty and meaningless and the pandemic is triggering all sorts of memories, emotions, and PTSD. I’ve had people reaching out, wanting to talk and have virtual happy hours and I am not up for any of it. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I can’t make conversation and small talk feels so offensive to me right now. I don’t even want to communicate through text. I don’t care about any of it. I just want to be alone. The best part of this quarantine is not having to go out and make small talk with anyone. However, we had planned to have the Unveiling on May 3 but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. This really upsets me. I’m not sure why that upsets me so much. It will just be postponed. Maybe because it’s how we were going to honor her a year later. Maybe because it’s supposed to be done within the first year and I feel like I’m letting her down. I’m sure that sounds ridiculous to those who don’t get it, and believe me, I don’t want anyone to get it. But these ceremonies and traditions are the only things left that I get to do as a parent. So they are very important to me.
Plenty of people are grieving right now. Grieving losses of experiences and memories they were hoping to make. And I get it. But it’s temporary. No matter how long it lasts, in the grand scheme of things it’s just a blip. A period of time that people will recollect as scary and uncertain, but also with plenty of fond memories. And once it ends, everyone gets to go back to experiencing new things and making new memories. So please remember that. Missing prom, missing graduation, having to postpone a wedding, is not the end of the world. It’s sad and disappointing, but a few years from now it won’t matter. We couldn’t go to the funeral of a friend of Ariella’s who recently died because of the restrictions. In a time where a parent needs as much support surrounding her that they can get, they couldn’t have it. We have friends with a very sick child and what they hope for right now is that this ends soon so their daughter can have some more experiences before cancer takes her. When this ends, David and I are still grieving. The experiences Ariella missed and the ones we missed as a family are never going to happen. When life resumes for most, it won’t for us. There aren’t more experiences to be shared, more memories to be made. This is it. Our grief is permanent.