Sometimes I wonder if I just left it at the title?  

Trauma and loss do not just “go away.” The experience gets entrenched into your body, your cells, your muscle memory, and your soul on different levels for each person. One thing I have learned is that you have to learn to continue to function. I was lucky that I had my daughter Raffi to focus on after Jesse and Bella died, she was my anchor and reason for trying to figure out how to keep going, she needed me.

Often times at first, you wonder how on earth the pain will ever get any better.  Then there are times of numbness, interspersing with that pain, a protection of the brain and body, because otherwise you may die of a broken heart. You go through the motions of life, much like a zombie on autopilot. Often after a loss, you have to make big and serious life decisions that you wonder in hindsight how on earth you did. Shock. That is how.  Your body encases all aspects in it, much like a superhero power to survive.

People up to that point are supportive, understanding, and compassionate.  The loss is there, it’s palpable. After the shock wears off and the pain outweighs the numbness and the reality of your life after the trauma and loss sinks in, there are often a myriad of emotions that surface.  That support network again is still understanding because now they are seeing how your new normal is affecting you. They are understanding when you walk along a street and see a little girl who looked like your sweet girl and you crumple in a ball of tears. But you can’t keep doing that.  You start to try to keep it in.  You start to sometimes trip in your head and worry that your friends don’t want to hang out with someone who is crying, depressed and fucked up (They were not thinking that, that would be the stupidity within my own head that likes to mess with my thinking).  Needless to say, you start to learn to function with the pain. You start to “act normal.” Part of that is that you are desperate to be that. You are desperate to have the pain go away and be like a “normal person’ (whatever that is!). Not someone who is a loss survivor of a murder suicide, that is for sure. You want to be able to go to a coffee shop and write your blog without crying because you see a little girl that looked like yours.

Time goes by and you learn.  You learn to function in the world. You learn to start living again in the hopes that some of the joy you are trying to experience sinks in. Sometimes you laugh and it is genuine. Eventually you sometimes even look “normal.” Over the past year and a half or so I learned to start living again, figuring out who I was after this tragedy. Over the past six plus months I have experienced a joy and love that I never thought I would get again in this lifetime.  You look at my Facebook page and you see tons of pictures of me smiling genuinely. And what you see is the truth. And there is more. There is still all that pain. All the time. It surfaces in varying degrees, you have more control at times when it does come up, but it is there.

So dear readers, I guess what I want to convey is something not to say to someone who has had unimaginable loss. When you see them living, when you see them smiling, when you see them experiencing joy again, do not assume they are “better.” (example, “I am so glad you are better”)  Do not assume that the pain is gone (I know you wish you could take that pain away, but you can’t).  Do not assume that when they see a little girl that looked like theirs go by they are not crying inside. Know that they are trying to navigate in the world with this pain AND trying to allow joy to seep in.  It’s both. It always will be.

One of the few times I just sat and looked at the sky last week, a moment of joy and at the same time a sadness thinking of my sweet girl