Saturday, April 28, 2012

Broken Record

Do you ever get tired of hearing me talk about the accident?

Or the grief over her brain injury?

Or how hard it is to stare this wide range of ramifications in the face all.day.long?

Or how difficult it is to be the caretakers of such a severely disabled child?

Or how emotionally draining all these varying decisions are?

Yeah...me too.

It gets old,

Quick.

I get tired of sounding like a broken record.

I feel as though I have been talking about the same thing,

For close to three years now.

I bet if I backtrack a few years,

I would pretty much see the same things being said.

I don't understand how to 'move on' from our situation.

Actually, in the beginning I had a much better grasp on everything.

As the years have passed by, my comprehension has become clouded.

Sure there are some very small ways in which we can move forward from this,

But in many larger ways, we are either backtracking,

Or,

We are completely stuck in the mud.

And those words,

Move on....

Well,

In reality,

They're just words.

7 comments:

  1. I hear you Jen, I totally understand. I live it everyday.

    Take care,
    Nicole

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  2. If you learn how to move on, let me know. People don't get it. I always tell them,

    This is IT.

    This IS it.

    There is no "other side."

    There is "getting through."

    There is no "recovery."

    There is no "things back to normal."

    There is no "better."

    THIS.IS.IT.

    People that I know move on, forget, live their lives, see us acting normal and assume we're the same as them, that the grief has died down (ironic words), that we've "moved on", that we've "healed", that we've "dealt with it" when in all honesty it's just THEM that have done all these things. For us it's no different than when she died almost 28 months ago. That I still have that horror of "oh my gosh, what the hell has happened?" That we still have the overwhelming, literally mind crippling grief that will never be "overcome." Because THEY are normal they naturally assume WE are normal.

    Our normal will never be the same.

    There IS no normal anymore.

    this.is.it.

    I'm so so so so sorry for you. I can't imagine what you go through.

    I can't imagine.

    I love you.

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  3. Cameo said everything I was thinking. Your life changed. This IS it. As much as we can wish and pray, things like this change our lives forever. Don't ever feel bad about talking about it. If they tire of it, they don't have to read it, ya know?

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  4. I will never get tired of hearing about your reality and life. I am so glad that you have an outlet for all of your frustration and sadness. I only wish that my words could help you more than they do. I am stuck as well. I feel that I cannot help you in the way that I want to. I realize that nobody can and it breaks my heart. I am sure that you feel so alone sometimes, even among family and friends. I want to change that so bad for you. I just really hope that you can eventually truly love living your life. I know that is probably impossible. But it is my dream for you. I wish that I lived closer to you so that I could really be there for you, holding Aviana, taking you shopping and to the movies, going on double dates with you and Dave, babysitting for you so you can go enjoy. It is hard to be far away from a friend who needs so much. Sending you love and hugs.

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  5. No. I keep coming back to read of your life, and in reality, I'm amazed at the "normal" things you still do. I can't imagine facing what you have to every day, hoping for changes that you don't see coming. I know people must somehow reach a point where their new "normal" is just that. But I'm not sure how. I've never experienced anything more than a few emergencies with my kids. Some had a bit of a lasting effect....for maybe six months or less. So I can't imagine a situation where most of your hope is left at the door.

    I do keep coming back in hopes that you are doing well on any given day. But I don't ever feel you should pretend what you don't feel. And I know your situation must be similar to many others who can relate and be encouraged that they too are not the only ones with these difficult issues/physical challenges/emotions to deal with. I know that no one who has not been in a similar situation can possible imagine living daily with a disabled child. And I think it's very different when it comes from an accident of a healthy child, rather than having to adjust to a child born with a disability. Neither easy, by any means...just different.

    Nancy in the Midwest

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  6. I sometimes think those first couple years are the easiest. Sure, we have grief and that's one thing. But we also have hope: hope that the therapy will work, hope that she will be back to her old self in the next two years, hope that things will return to "normal" if we work day and night at the program to make that happen. So in those first couple years we have grief and hope together, which somehow makes the grief tolerable. But as you realize as that first year, that second year, that third year passes by...that this might be IT -- that THIS is IT for improvements and the little girl you once knew really isn't coming back - then hope scoots out the back door, and grief is there waiting to take over. And it's so hard to fight grief when you don't have hope there to help you. It's hard to do it alone. I was my most depressed after that second year than I ever was. Hope had left and I was faced with the reality. And that sucked. So...I had to find hope again. But this time it wasn't hope in her full recovery, or even in any further recovery...but instead the hope was switched to focus on the entire family, not just her. I hoped to return to a more normal life, and so we started taking trips again. I had hope of adding on to our family, and so we had another baby. And I had hope of seeing my brain injured girl being involved in "normal" things instead of doing program 8 hours a day, so I got my girl involved in things that I knew would make her happy, and her being happy would make me happy. She started school. She joined a girl scout troop. She started equine therapy (not because I expected it to make her better, although it does show to help kids, but because I knew getting up on a horse would make her happy) Anyway, this is what I did to bring hope back. It was tricky to do, but it worked. It wasn't the same hope as before, no...but it still worked to make the pain of it all easier to live with.

    Jen, I see you doing this with your pie making. I see you doing this with Aviana's Angels. And there will be more things. It's such a hard road, it really is. But you are doing it. You are creating the hope in your life so that the grief won't live in your head alone. I see all you have to do in one day to care for your precious girl and you always amaze me. I admire you so much.

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  7. WOW! Anything I thought of to say has already been said....and far more eloquently than I could have. I struggle with the finality of situations, especially death, which is kind of odd since I'm old and I've seen lots of it. I don't know what Heaven is like, but the thought of seeing those I love again and seeing them healthy and whole is very comforting to me.

    And, to answer your questions, Jen, my answer is No, I never get tired. I think you and Dave do an amazingly hard job everyday with grace, courage and humor. I admire you so much!

    Love,
    Dixie

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