The Aftermath

Dear Mom,

The title of this post is a bit ironic. It describes, well, the aftermath of my last post, and it also happens to be the name of the company who cleaned up your friend's house on Thursday. They ripped out the walls, the floors, the ceiling... everything was covered with... him. I'm so relieved that his wife will never have to see that scene again in person, even though I know it will always be embedded in her head. Thank goodness for a company like that and for the people who have the strength to handle that kind of job. I had no idea they existed, and every part of me still wishes I never had a reason to.

The dark clouds have lifted, but I'm still left with this foggy haze overhead. I didn't sleep well, my anxiety is way too elevated, and I can't get the thoughts and potential images of how your friend found her husband out of my head. I think it's even harder to cope with because I know that no matter the emotions I'm feeling, she's feeling them a million times over; the only thing that can heal her is time, and that's currently at a standstill for her.

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I wrote that this morning after breakdown #4 in the shower and before breakdown #5 in my office. Not ideal, but I am doing better tonight. I spoke with Dad and he sounds better (this loss is hard on him, but really it in no way compares to losing you).

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I wrote that yesterday before I got food poisoning at dinner with a girlfriend. Can't a girl finish a thought without something interrupting her?! What an awful week I'm having! Did I mention that I also have a head cold and got into a car accident too (just a fender-bender, although it didn't bend my fender, instead the girl rear-ended me, pushing my car up onto a snowbank practically ripping out my exhaust)? Sunny days just have to be coming my way soon right?!

Besides my stuffy nose, headache, queasy stomach, and random flashes of our family's friend here and there, I'm doing much better. I've already gone through one of the most painful things a daughter possibly can endure when I lost you, so everything else is ultimately meek in comparison. I can't even begin to tell you just how much I miss you or how badly I wish things could be different, but... in a way you were still teaching me a life lesson through your death. You taught me that even the worst kind of heartache and pain eventually subsides, and there's nothing I can't overcome. No matter how badly it hurts, it won't feel like that forever.

I'm so thankful for that.

Love,
Sami