This. This is a Facebook memory from January 23, 2013.  I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around that this was five years ago. She had just got a care package from Grandma and Grandpa in NY with, you got it, princess dress up stuff. She promptly stripped off her clothes and put on this outfit. Every once in a while you get these glimpses of the adult they will be. It is not often, as kids are often making goofy faces, snot may be dripping out of their nose, or teeth missing. They are being age appropriate with the gazillion photos we take of them. However, these glimpses do happen. This is one of them. I looked at her, in this moment, and said to Jesse, this is a glimpse of the regal, poised, elegant adult she will be.

I don’t get that though. She is frozen in time at four years, ten months, seventeen days, and who the fuck knows how many minutes.

You say, why don’t you turn off your Facebook memories?  Would you? How can I? I don’t fall into a heap of tears now at least. Well, with this one I did. But not all of them. It is a reminder of the day to day details that get lost in the sea of memories. It is a reminder that you had this life with this being. It weaves the fabric of the day to day into the memories you do remember, creating this tapestry of the life you were helping to shape. Those experiences you want as a parent for them to look back on with the longing of a childhood remembered.

This does not get better nor easier. I will not “heal” from this. I not only have the sweetest pictures of her in my head, I have the most horrific. Both are burned in there forever. They both play simultaneously, going from one to another, in a matter of a minute. My mind is continuously working hard when the horrific comes up to push it out. I don’t want to remember her like that. But I have no choice in that. PTSD sees to that.

I saw this memory come up, I saw that my response to it in 2016 was to go run in the rain. Today, I did that same thing. I ran hard, the rain hiding my tears, and came back soaking wet. It is one of the few things that can help. Not much honestly can around this bottomless pit of grief with her.  When I sit for a NY moment with it, I get raw, over-sensitive,edgy, agitated, grumpy, not tempered with my words, slightly unkind at times. I have to work to keep all that in so not to lash out. So I run to burn it off.

People say time heals all wounds. I say no, not all. The longing in my heart has not changed at all. The longing to see her, touch her, hold her. I still try to make deals with heaven or hell to let me. I still want to punch anyone who says that “god” must have wanted her back or had other plans for her. Fuck that. She was innocent and sweet, she had a future and was violently taken from me. My final memories are, well, bad.

What does time do? It allows me to figure out how to live with this hole in my soul. It has through hard work allowed happiness to exist with sorrow. The human heart is capable of so many emotions, a vat that has no limit. So the sorrow stays. And the happiness that has crept in too. And the grateful for that happy, eternal.

Running off the emotions