I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT





Uh soooooooooooo were getting into bed on Sunday night.  Baby Girl spent the night at her friends house on Friday and played with her all day Saturday. Sunday we stayed home from church and she played all day with the neighborhood kids. It was a pretty good weekend.

Shes climbing into bed and she stops and says “mommy you know the night daddy died”  "ya?" I say warely. Only one other time in the last three years has she started a conversation with 'you know the night daddy died.' On that occurrence she told me she could here the workers (paramedics) talking, one of them sounded like her Uncle. She knew Daddy had died, she just knew.

“Were me and daddy arguing?” she asks. Uhhhhhhhh well thats a tricky question. The problem being I don't remember, at all, in the slightest. It's like I blacked out between 5pm and 11pm that day. I have no recollection at all of what happened. However they rarely argued with each other, Baby Girl and I argue all the time sure, but Baby Girl and Dan hardly ever, Really Dan hardly ever argued with anybody. So I tell her my gut instinct plus the truth.  "No I don't think so. I don't remember, but I don't know why you and daddy would be arguing" 

"Yes we were arguing. remember, we had the tables out in a half circle, and we were arguing over them." No I don't remember but its possible I suppose. She loved to play this game where she would set the tray tables up in a semi circle and then gather stuff from around the house and pretend she had a store. She never wanted to clean it up at the end of the day so she could continue to play the next day, Dan almost always made her clean it up anyway.  What I do remember is when the paramedics came those tables were not out. So I guess Dan had made her clean up. 

And then...

And then...

I have always wondered what Baby Girl remembers about the night Dan died. If she was awake terrified in her room or if she miraculously slept through the whole thing. I took her silence as a sign that she slept through the whole thing.

And then...

And then...

She puts her head on my chest and starts to quietly cry. Not the raging and screaming shes known for, just quietly crying while she says, "I was mad at Daddy I wished Daddy would die. That's how I knew when you were crying that Daddy had died. I just knew"

I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT

I just can't even, three years and she's never said anything remotely related to this. How has she been carrying this for three years?  Keep it together Jennifer, keep it together. As casually as possible I say "You heard mommy crying, huh. When did you hear mommy crying, were you awake?"  just as casually she responds "ya you know you were crying and all the people were there and then Auntie came into my room" No I didn't know, I thought Auntie coming into your room is what woke you up. I was hoping that Auntie was what woke you up, not mommy screaming and crying because Daddy was dying.  

Why I decided to lead the conversation with 'you heard mommy crying' and not you 'wished daddy died' I don't know. Maybe I was still trying to wrap my brain around what I had just heard, maybe my brain was trying to figure out what it could possibly say to this, to the Baby Girl who was mad at her daddy and wished for one second that he was dead. Then it actually happened. She burrows herself deeper into my chest. Then I guess my head came up with the answer because I said "You know thinking things doesn't make them come true. Thats impossible, nobody has that power, not even magicians. You can't think something and make it happen. It just doesn't work like that, thoughts are just thoughts, thats all. Daddy didn't die because you wished him to. Daddy died because he had a siezure. Thats all, thats the only thing that made him die."

She detaches from me and snuggles down into the blankets. "Read mommy read"  that is definitely a sign, this conversation is over, back to our routine.

I am a broken mess. I just can’t believe she said that, I can’t believe she thought that! I am heart broken for her, does she really think it’s her fault? How can she have been thinking this for three years and not say anything?

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

Comments

  1. Emma PascaleFebruary 5, 2018 at 3:21 AM

    Gosh - Baby Girl and you both carrying so much.
    Please sleep lovely Jenny. You did well holding this. You do so well holding all of this.
    Broken mess. False starts. Fresh starts. Read again. Then sleep.
    But not you. It's the middle of the night. You're writing.
    xxx

    ReplyDelete

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