Why are you panicking?




Baby girl has a six week after school program one day a week right now. Yesterday I took her to school and said in front of her teacher “remember you have after school program today” Baby girl said she would remember, her teacher commented on how fun the program was. 

After school I got a phone call from the after school program they said “we have baby girl marked absent today” Uhhhhhhhhhhhh Noooooooooooo. Baby girl should be there; did she forget and get on the bus? The lady on the phone doesn’t know. She’s not actually at the school she just makes the phone calls.  Panic Panic Panic Panic. I am 99% certain that baby girl forgot and got on the bus. 99%, but that 1%, tells me that I know bad things happen now. That something could be terribly wrong. That 1% thought is winning over the 99% common sense. “Ok I’ll call the school” I say trying not to sound panicked.

 I call the school secretary and say “baby girl isn’t in the after school program can you ask her teacher if she forgot and got on the bus”  I wonder if she can hear the panic in my voice as I wait for her to check with the teacher, I’m trying hard to stay calm. I’m trying to listen to the 99% of my brain and not the 1%. It’s hard. You see my husband, who was not sick or injured, died, just died, right in front of me. The chances of that are even less than 1% and yet it happened. And now my brain is constantly reminding me that bad things can and do happen. Not to those other people over there, but to everyone, to us. The secretary gets back on the line and says the teacher can’t remember if she got on the bus or not.  “Ok” I say as calm as I can. “Well I’m sure she just got on the bus. The bus will be here in five minutes I will call you back and let you know if shes on it.” 

What the hell was I thinking; I can’t just sit here for five minutes when I don’t know where my child is. It is two days before the two year anniversary of Dan’s death. My anxiety is already high. Perhaps on a different day I would have reacted better, but not today. She’s on the bus, she’s got to be on the bus I tell myself. No I can’t wait. I start looking up the number to the bus barn to see if they can get a hold of the bus driver and ask if baby girl is on the bus. As I’m looking for the number the bus pulls up, and baby girl jumps off. “I forgot to go to the after school program mommy.” Huh ya mommy knows all about it. I take deep deep breathes she’s ok, she was on the bus. See 1% you loose. I call the school back and tell her she was on the bus, so that they don’t panic either.

 I’m still frazzled. We go inside and I sit on a chair. I can’t think, I can’t concentrate. She’s fine, why do I still feel like I’m in panic mode. I don’t know why but I am, this feeling won’t go away, my heart racing, my mind thinking of what could have happened while at the same time telling me to calm down she’s fine. We go home to grandmas. (the bus drops her off at our new house which we haven’t moved into yet.) I go into my room and just lay on my bed till dinner. Trying to calm my brain down, trying to calm my body down, thinking about my dead husband, because that is always there too.  We eat dinner, my mother in law can tell I’m still shaken up, she reminds me that everything is fine. Three hours after the non missing child incident I remember that I have anxiety pills from my doctor. I take one, it helps a lot. Why didn’t I remember I had these dumb pills three hours ago. I never used to be this way, I am calm and practical. Grief made me this way. Death made me this way. I fear the old me won’t come back, it can’t. In order for it to come back Dan would have to come back.  

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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