Month: May 2023

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Anniversaries, Mother’s Day, Signs…

Another Mother’s Day. The 5th without my daughter. We buried her the day after Mother’s Day in 2019. I do everything in my power to avoid this day. After all, I am a childless mother. There is no word for that. When I’m asked do I have children I don’t know how to answer. Really just depends on the day, the moment, the person. I am a mother but I am not mothering. No more handmade cards, no more special mother-daughter outings, no more thoughtful gifts. Ariella was good at that. And now I hide. I try to protect my heart, spare myself from the jealousy and bitterness I feel with the constant bombardment of the pictures, the perfect families, the mom messages, the special days. But it doesn’t work. There is no hiding. The grief finds you, it takes hold, it wraps its tentacles around you and squeezes you until you can’t breathe.

Grief doesn’t go away, you learn to live with it and it becomes a part of you. In some cases grief has just made me “more”. More anxious, more introverted, more quiet, more solitary AND more empathetic because you truly never know what someone is going through. AND it also has changed me at the core. It has made me cynical, pessimistic, jealous, resentful, and bitter. Traits I never used to carry.

Right before Mother’s Day was the 4th anniversary of Ariella’s death. Our rabbi used to talk about the first year, how we would get through the firsts of everything, the first birthday, the first holiday, the first death anniversary, etc. like that would be the hardest, like once we got through that it would be easier. Or maybe not that it would be easier, but that we would learn that we could survive it. The truth is in many ways each year feels harder. We get further away from Ariella, further away from being able to picture clearly her face, hear the sound of her voice, feel the weight of her arms around us. That first year we were surrounded by people, everyone remembered, and on those hard days there was no shortage of people to turn to. People expected us to be sad, understood it, and didn’t try to fix it. As the years pass others move on and can’t grasp the extent that we still hurt (nor would we want them to) even though we smile and have fun and have started living again. Some still reach out on those hard days but not as many, and it happens much less now throughout the year. I get it. I do. But it gets lonely. It feels like we are stranded on this little island with no way off and relief coming only periodically, when the conditions allow. Sometimes the island is calm, the seas are smooth like glass and you feel safe. You’re still trapped and there is nowhere to go, but for a moment you are okay. Then a storm rolls through. Sometimes it’s forewarned and you can prepare yourself and sometimes you are completely blindsided. The waves come crashing, the wind is howling, the island is under water, and you feel like you are going to drown or get knocked out by a falling tree. You try to find a cave or shelter in which to curl up and hide until the worst passes. Eventually though the waters do recede and the winds subside. Overtime there are fewer storms and more periods of calm. The grief gets carried differently but the pain is always there. It’s just now there is room for some I can’t say happiness but I guess enjoyment and purpose alongside.

I do have to share a recent sign I got, mostly so I have a record of it. I like to ask Ariella for obscure signs as it’s harder to wave them off as mere coincidence. A few weeks ago the song “It’s so Hard to Say Goodbye To Yesterday” by Boys II Men very randomly (considering it’s from the early 90s) popped into my head. I cannot tell you the last time I heard it but I distinctly remember hearing it playing at the ice rink when I was in high school, right after my friend died. The lyrics hit so hard at that time and thinking of the song brought me back to that moment. So anyway, for whatever reason I thought of that song and asked for the song, or anything Boys II Men as a sign. What were the odds it would actually happen? I thought slim to none. When I was at PT on May 9, the anniversary of Ariella’s death, the song “One Sweet Day” (also random since that song is from 1995) by Mariah Carey came on. Similar sentiment to what I was looking for but not quite what I asked for (or so I thought). Exactly one week later, at PT again, “One Sweet Day” came on again but this time I was paying attention to the male part because clearly something or someone was trying to make me pay attention to this old song. I always knew the song as a Mariah Carey song and didn’t know who she sang with so looked it up and was surprised/not surprised to see it was Boys II Men. So there you have it. Another unlikely sign, two weeks in a row because I ignored it the first time.

“It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye To Yesterday” by Boys II Men (originally by G.C. Cameron)

How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad

… I thought we’d get to see forever
But forever’s gone away
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

… I don’t know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we’ve been
And what we’ve been through

… And if we get to see tomorrow
I hope it’s worth all the wait
It’s hard to say goodbye to yesterday

… And I’ll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

… And I’ll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

“One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey and Boys II Men

Sorry I’ve never told you
All I wanted to say
And now it’s too late to hold you
‘Cause you’ve flown away, so far away

Never had I imagined
Living without your smile
Feeling and knowing you hear me
It keeps me alive, alive

And I know you’re shining down on me from Heaven
Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way
And I know eventually we’ll be together (Together)
One sweet day
(And I’ll wait patiently to see you in heaven)

Darling, I never showed you (No, no, no, no)
Assumed you’d always be there (Always there)
I thought you’d always be there
I, I took your presence for granted
But I always cared (But I always cared)
And I miss the love we shared (Yeah, and I know)

And I know you’re shining down on me from Heaven
Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way (Lost along the way)
And I know eventually we’ll be together (Oh, no, I know)
One sweet day
(And I’ll wait patiently to see you in heaven)

(Although the sun will never shine the same again)
(I’ll always look to a brighter day) Yeah, yeah
Lord, I know when I lay me down to sleep
You will always listen as I pray

And I know you’re shining down on me from Heaven
Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way
And I know eventually we’ll be together
One sweet day (One sweet day)
And I know you’re shining down on me from Heaven
Like so many friends we’ve lost along the way
And I know eventually we’ll be together (Yes, we will)
(One sweet day) One sweet day

Sorry, I never told you
All I wanted to say

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Memories

This time of year, from March through May, I am flooded with memories. Memories that are in direct contradiction to each other, memories that have completely different emotions to them. Back in March 2017 Ariella had just begun her treatment. Our days were awful, our lives put on hold. We were scared and sad and feeling helpless. And we had so much hope. Less than a year and she would beat this thing. We could get through a year and then we would be back to normal. Her prognosis was good. In between hospital visits, when Ariella was in between treatments, those brief periods when she was feeling well, we could live our lives. We had a lot of fun. We even had fun times in the hospital. We had some terrible, terrible times in those early days, especially just trying to figure out this new life, adjusting to our new normal but I never felt completely defeated. Honestly I followed Ariella’s lead. I can’t say she never complained but she mostly had a great attitude. She never doubted she would get better and she cared more about comforting other children. And I would do anything to go back there. For better or worse those hospital rooms were our second home. We knew the doctors, nurses, child life staff and volunteers. We got to know other families. We decorated the rooms and brought comforts from home. Even when times were better, when Ariella finished her treatment, I missed those days. We had fun but there was also a sense of safety. While Ariella was there, we were fighting the cancer, keeping it at bay. Once we were out of those rooms we were doing nothing to stop it from coming back.

In March 2019 everything had changed. The promise of a cure from a bone marrow transplant quickly vanished when Ariella had to be admitted to the ICU, and then a week later was intubated. Of course we still held onto hope because without hope, you just can’t continue living. But I knew, I just knew if she was intubated she was not going to come off life support. I tried not to despair. We had some steps forward. But ultimately with each step forward there were larger steps backwards. As the weeks went on I lost more and more hope and began to fear more and more that we would lose her. Days and nights were spent staring at her vitals, listening to the beeps. We were terrified and exhausted and completely helpless. Ariella would have a great day here or there which inevitably would be followed by another setback. There was nothing fun about those days, just constant vigilance. I do not look back at those days with any sort of fondness. Even when Ariella’s room was overflowing her last day, visitors spilling out into the hallway, waiting to say their goodbyes. I’m glad people got to say their goodbyes. But following those moments I have to remember the machine being turned down, step-by-step until it was no longer keeping her alive, hearing Ariella take her last breaths, and feeling her leave us.

With the calendar having turned over to May I’m not filled with the sense of renewal that the promise of spring and warmer weather often brings, but instead filled with dread about facing the anniversary of the day Ariella died. Remembering those awful days leading us to making that impossible decision. Leaving the hospital without our girl after spending over 2 1/2 months there just hoping we would be leaving as a family, only coming back for check-ups. We went into the hospital on February 19, 2019, one week before her transplant, filled with hope and excitement, ready to celebrate her re-birthday. We left the hospital May 9, 2019 as a broken family of two with a hole that can never be filled.