Sunday, February 17, 2013

2 Years Later

  I try to behave as I am expected, but my grief stays with me like a sad song that you can't get out of your head.  I am unable to stop the thoughts and memories especially the ones of her last hours, maybe I don't really want to.  I get up, get dressed, go to the gym or to art class, travel, see friends, I do all these things, I smile and laugh but behind my eyes just beneath the surface are the dark, sad thoughts that keep me up at night.  We are now years past her death, not hours or days or even months but over 2 years and just like in the movies life has gone on for everyone except Lex who is frozen.   Her face in the photographs the same, a beautiful, vibrant 27 year old face, her smile never changes, the sparkle in her eyes always there.  Only we have changed, I have changed, I'm emotionally tired, as I carry this sadness with me.  I try to remember the good times, and I do remember them but the intensity of what happened to her this terrible relentless disease that stole her from us always seeps into the good memories.  I look at the photos of a cruise we took in 2000 there we are a happy family, smiling and laughing for the camera the girls in their new clothes so excited for this holiday and I smile at the memory but then I think, we didn't know that only 10 years later Lex would be gone.  Every memory follows the same path for me no matter how hard I try and then I wonder did she have an inkling?  Could she have somehow sensed that her life would be short?  I hope not, I couldn't bare the thought of her knowing.  However, it would explain her 'lust for life'  her desire to do as much as she could as fast as she could, I used to say that Alexis 'pushed the walls' always wanting to go further, than we were comfortable with and she managed to accomplish a great deal in her life. In fact whatever she set her mind to whether it be education,  or travel she achieved her goal!  She was a force of nature! 

I am resigned to the fact that I will always mourn her.  When we celebrate the things that every family celebrates she will be missing and her absence is like a shadow something that is there but not there.  I was warned that the second year after a death is worse than the first, I didn't believe it could actually get worse, but what happens is that we become softer.  The walls we have constructed to protect ourselves from grief become weakened.  For most of the 1st year after she died I attempted to show the world that I was fine and coping well.   I was able to control most of the sadness, compartmentalize my emotions so I didn't have to deal with them but now all the memories, the worries, the anger, and helplessness are finding cracks in my wall and so in this second year of grieving I am struggling more as memories and thoughts seep into my consciousness and fall out my eyes.