Ladybug Landing

I am not sure I can even begin to explain what yesterday was like for me, but I am going to do my best....I did not sleep well the night before like I thought I would. The night before I told Mckenna's story to a beautiful soul friend and I felt like I could breathe again. There are times I feel the need to tell her story, to go to that place that is constantly replaying in my head. The swirling of memories, the images, words, the details I don't speak about very often. I woke up in a panic. I paced my apartment searching, wondering, lost, and breathing fast not knowing what to do. This pacing thing is kind of new for me. I have been told it is very primal and an instinctive reaction to the loss of a child. Pacing is all I could do because I was crawling out of my skin missing, longing, and yearning. I found it hard to breathe because each breath seemed to be taken from me. I kept repeating in my head, 4 years, how can it be 4 years? Where have the years gone? 4 years, I j...

4 years, or 208 weeks, or  1,460 days I have been without my daughter. I am finding it hard to put to words how this makes me feel. Recently I started reading the journal I started after Mckenna’s death. This journal was given to me by a friend at Mckenna’s funeral, and I am so very thankful she did such a kind thing for me that day. As I started reading I felt as if I was reading someone else’s words, someone else’s tragic story. Each page filled with sorrow and pain that no mother should ever have to endure. I thought to myself, this poor mother, how has she survived this terrible, tragic death of her beautiful daughter? I didn’t recognize the women in those words. Oh but then again I do because that woman is me. The days when it hurt to breathe, hurt to wake up, hurt to think, hurt to laugh. The days when I wished to die, to never wake up. The days I couldn’t grieve and couldn’t feel. As each month passed it was like I was getting further and further away from the on...