I’m not sure when the days turned to weeks. It seems it went by overnight. I was consumed with sadness. My pillow was permanently streaked with mascara and tear stains.
I cried constantly, any thought, check in message, or my Nathan asking to go see grandma would send me into a blubbering mess of tears, they seemed to leak from every crevice.
I was terrified of going upstairs. Upstairs was where she passed but it was also where we would sit and bathe Nathan together each night. He would splash, I would say, “Nathan, water stays in the tub.” And she would say, “let him splash, he’s having fun.”
She would kneel down next to the tub and splash him back, moving the trucks in and out of the water. It was one of our favorite times of day. I can still feel her laughter and excitement when I think back to those moments.
Because I was so terrified of going upstairs this meant Nathan didn’t get his bath. To be honest I think he went a month before I realized he needed one. I in hysterics cried to Paul and asked him to take it over. I just couldn’t be in her space. Smell her scent everywhere and not lose it. I’d hear the water turn on and cry my heavy grief tears alone in my bed.
I’d cradle my growing belly and pray my baby girl wouldn’t feel the pain I felt inside. The guilt ran deep on so many different levels.
When the weeks turned into months I found myself buried inside my pain. I kept telling Paul, I don’t want to be crazy. I don’t want to hurt. And with each plea to Heavenly Father to not feel this it sank in even more. The grief physically hurt. My anxiety attacks started out slow but then quickly turned to daily experiences. I was abandoned by God. Or so it felt.
It felt like any thought of fear for my future, guilt over not being able to save her and worry of hearing a noise upstairs would trigger them.
I was so ashamed of how I felt. So ashamed I was losing my sense of reality, ashamed I couldn’t get it under control, ashamed I was hurting so bad, ashamed I couldn’t stop crying. Because of this, I started to hide what was going on.
I’d cry in the shower, in the car, or reserve my deepest anxiety attacks for when I was by myself. I would lie to people about how I was doing and put a smile on my face. I’d get ready for the day and out of my bed to see my husband go to work and then I’d quickly get back in bed and cry.
I became extremely clingy and wanted my husband with me at all times. I never wanted to be alone. Yet when he was with me I’d pick a fight with him for not meeting my crazy expectations of perfectionism. No matter what he would do it wasn’t right and I’d take it out on him. As I’ve healed I’ve recognized that that behavior was a reflection of how messed up I felt inside. How I felt I had zero control over my thoughts, feelings, and actions. I mentioned I was a mess right.
My next focus was on having the baby girl I was carrying. I told myself once she was here I would be normal. All would go back to where it was.
3 months after grandma’s passing on September 14, 2013, on what would have been grandma’s 74th birthday my baby came into this world. She had curly dark hair and the most perfect demeanor.
They laid her on my chest and I just couldn’t believe she was mine. And then the guilt came. I didn’t feel her spirit, I didn’t feel connected to her like I did Nathan. What was wrong with me! I felt so broken.
I never told a single person what I felt that day because I was so afraid someone would take her away from me. It took years to tell my husband and when I did he just held me while I cried.
It was such a blessing to have her, and one I know divinely orchestrated. A blessing I would need for the rest of my life. CC will always be my miracle baby.
The next year of her life would be filled with a broken mom. A mom who would cry while she slept. A mom who would yell, a mom who didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. A mom who just needed to move out of their house because the memories seemed to bleed through the walls. And a mom who stressed and panicked over every little thing.
I would hold CC as much as possible because her baby smells and smiles would calm my aching heart.
One night, after a particularly rough day I had a dream with Grandma. If you could call it that, others would call it a visitation. She knocked on my door as she always would and it was easy to let her in.
I was so happy but remembered she had died. I said, “Grandma, you’re alive again?” (That was my Hope, that this reality was somehow not real and I’d wake up to it all being a case of amnesia and I’d dreamt it all.)
Her reply was, “No Talesha, but I have some things to tell you. You must remember them.”I didn’t want this to end. She was happy, I was happy and it felt just as it needed to be. But as quickly as her message came, she left just as quick. Leaving me to remember.
She urgently told me to get rid of everything. That nothing was too valuable to hold onto. And that I needed to tell my mother this. She knew my mom’s feelings and worries.
When I relayed the message to my mom she confirmed she had been thinking about what to do with her clothing the night before. How neat is that?!
Her parting message, which would be the last time I saw her like that was an urgency to find papers, I didn’t know what exactly they were but I knew I would be aware of them when I found them.
It took me 3 years to discover the papers she was talking about. And those papers were journal entries I had written after a particularly rough season of missing her.
It wouldn’t be till a year after grandma’s passing that I finally sought help for my grief and my, I’m going crazy thoughts.
It took me a year of pleading for a solution to ease my soul and a year of blaming myself for her death to finally feel safe enough to admit I needed help.
I walked up the steps to my energy healer, silent prayer in my heart that this would be what would help me. I knocked on the door and knew, this was a place for me.