New Friends and Game Night

From an okay day yesterday to today. Back to where I was. Hard to smile, hard to want to do things, hard to motivate. Which is fine. Which is where I still expected to be. I’m glad yesterday happened. Maybe it happened when it did to show me that it will one day be possible to experience that regularly even though I’m not there yet. Just to give some light in darkness. The thing is I feel more “right” today. Though yesterday felt okay it also felt “wrong” to feel that way. Not a guilt thing, I know Ariella would have wanted me to have fun. She always cared about how others were feeling, always wanted to make them feel better. Whenever I wasn’t feeling well at home even though it meant I wasn’t paying attention to her she always offered her special stuffed animal to me to make me feel better. She wanted everyone to be happy and well and I’m sure she’d still want that. But it just felt wrong that I could experience joy so soon after losing the most important part of me. How I’m feeling today, how I’ve been feeling, feels more right. I don’t want to stay here but right now it’s where I am and I think where I need to be.

The good thing is that we had plans so I did get out today. We went to brunch at a friend’s house. Someone who also experienced child loss and had reached out to me many times (we have a lot of mutual friends, I did not know her prior to this) when Ariella was sick and after she died. I wasn’t ready to accept until now and I’m glad I did. David and I had a nice brunch with her and her husband and we talked about other things but mostly our kids. And it was good to talk to people that get it. However it is so wrong that instead of discussing school or the activities they do we were comparing hospital stays, funerals, and shiva. They are further out than we are from the loss but I would say it’s still pretty new for them as well. I hate that this was the reason we actually met this family because we will be friends from here on out, but I am glad that we met them when we needed.

While we were at our friends’ they mentioned they were going to game night with their daughter and a couple other families. Game night was my favorite night of the week with the 3 of us. Friday night was either game or movie night but I definitely preferred the games. We had so many games where we had to be silly or do funny things and they always made for a great night. Our only child died. So no more family game nights or movie nights. David and I have very different taste in movies, we always just watched what Ariella wanted to watch. Just one of the ways in which our world has been completely changed. Our family of 3 became a childless family of 2. Most of the week Ariella was either at the dance studio or doing homework, or not feeling great because of her treatments. And David and I may have had plans during the week as well. But almost every Friday night was spent with the 3 of us together. The house is completely different without a child in it. Our routines have completely changed and it is extremely unsettling. Not only are we missing our daughter immensely but also missing everything that went along with having a child, even the arguments and attitude. It’s so hard to figure out how to go on from here. I’m glad I was able to take off the last few weeks of work (I work in the school system so to go back with a few week left would have just caused more stress) but I will need to figure something out soon to get through the long summer days. To end on a smile here is just a sample of one of our game nights.