Weeks of Maximum Hope

These were the weeks of maximum hope, this time last year. The oak trees in our garden were that beautiful shade of fresh green that they have when all their leaves are new, as they are now. The whole garden was fresh with spring newness as we brought Kay home, full of optimism. As I was writing this I thought that I'd look up the photo that I took of Kay when she came home after the BMT, but I dare not, it would break my heart. Everything went downhill from that moment.

My body aches for her, everything I do around the house and in the garden recalls her. The last few days I have been opening the pool and I'm constantly beset with memories of her: last year sitting on the edge of the pool with toes in the water, so angry and upset that she was not allow to go in; years past, playing pig-in-the-middle with her and Lauren. It's all so difficult to encompass, to believe, to understand that she is no more. 

Nattie has been away for three nights and two days, Lauren is at school. At these moments the emptiness of the house screams at me, the silence from Kay's bedroom. Life feels so incomplete, it feels like I have failed in the most important thing that there is: to bring all my children safely to adulthood. A failure that can never be redressed, never compensated, one that I just have to live with. It's almost impossible to bear.

I'm also becoming more and more afraid of the summer. We're going to enter the birthday period soon, first Nattie, then Marion, then Kay, then me; one every two weeks from the start of July. Marion's & Kay's birthdays fall during our holiday and we'll be away from our support network. These are going to be moments of high emotion and deep grief, and having to face them scares me stupid. We're too hurt, too fragile to have to face Kay's birthday in particular. I know already that Marion is going to turn into a bucket of tears and I'm not sure that I'll have the strength myself to support her.

On the positive side, I seem to be sleeping better. For the last weeks I have fallen asleep fairly quickly and have slept reasonably well, although generally I've been waking up early. I take a couple of paracetamol and an Oxazepam sleep inducer to help, a formula that worked nicely this time last year. I no longer have the absolute mind-numbing tiredness that I was fighting a while ago, but the result of sleeping better is that I'm more aware of just how generally tired I am, especially in the morning. Although I wake early, I still feel like I could continue sleeping - need to continue sleeping, actually. So I'm still pretty slow out of bed and the days still consume more energy to get through than they deliver.

Oh, would that it were all different. I so miss that mischievous laugh, that infectious giggle, the mock outrage, the loving smile, the warm heart and bold nature. All the things that she was, I miss in every cell of my body.