Merry Christmas Jessica

Boy did I need this verse today. Every day is torturous without Jessica, and I was prepared for today to not be any different. I was wrong. Today was worse!

I had 19 Christmas’ shared with my sister….today was like someone was slowly suffocating me but expecting me to continue to breathe.  It started late last night I looked at the stockings hanging and noticing that Jessica’s would remain empty was a knife to the heart. I sat and stared at her stocking and cried and simply longed for her.

This morning as every one slowly woke to open gifts (thank God the kids sleep in), I dreaded going downstairs and seeing the empty spot where Jess always sat to open her presents. The kids had a great Christmas and for awhile my mind was occupied and we enjoyed each other. But like always it doesn’t take long for the aching for Jessica to return and I have to keep the smile on my face while inside I’m being torn apart.

I went and visited with Jessica yesterday evening, alone. I sat with her and talked with you as I typically do. Today was so emotional I could hardly remember how to breathe. My tears started before I even got out of my car….the realization that the cemetery is where I have to go to visit my sister on Christmas now. Yes, I am well aware that Jessica is not “there”. However, the only body I ever knew my sister in, is there, right there in that cold ground. That’s where I go to feel close to her.

To say that any of us felt a “void” today is the understatement of the year! As I’ve stated before, there simply aren’t words big enough and powerful enough to describe the pain and sadness that we all feel.

I read a few things on FB today in regards to people having “bad days” or “a disappointing Christmas’” and yes, while pain is pain and we all have crappy days and unfortunate circumstances in life; I just urge you all to step back and remember and recognize what is TRULY IMPORTANT in life and to know, it could always be worse. You could be visiting people you love at the cemetery each day.  I know Jessica has taught me to appreciate EVERY minute that I have on this earth with those that I love and everything else is irrelevant now…everything.

I hope each and every one of you had a Christmas filled with love.

Two Men

I was presented with Jessica’s autopsy this morning and the knot and sickness in the pit of my stomach has not subsided. The 2 coroners who told my family that Jessica died, were the same 2 that arrived this morning.  I’ve said it before and as you can well imagine, I am haunted by their voices and presence. 

I processed what they were telling me but in small fragments. I stayed busy after they left so as not to have to think too much about what the report said. It wasn’t until I had some time alone that I decided to read the report more in depth. I found myself reading a horrific nightmare on paper, unfortunately it was my reality and Jessica’s reality.

These are the moments when my anger begins to flare. I know we aren't promised tomorrow, but WHY did it have to be in such a horrific manner?!  Jessica didn’t die peacefully in her sleep Jessica was scared and died violently, if only for a split second, and now we are all left with the morbid details of the accident and of her death.  My heart is screaming because I am haunted by her death, not because she is in eternity, but how she had to get there.  How do I get past that how do any of us get past that?  HOW do I recover from the reality of how she died?

Unfortunately, I believe that I am asking questions that there simply are no good answers for……I believe the answer is, we don’t recover and we don’t put it to rest, we simply learn to breathe again and to walk again with this pain living inside of us.

I feel discouraged this evening and I hope that doesn’t disappoint those of you that tell me how strong I am. I am strong but I am weak, I am human and I am broken.

Confused?

I feel I am failing all you as I have no strength to share lately. I am in a darker place now than ever before.  Today has been an incredibly difficult day and the feeling of emptiness for my sister has overcome me with weariness. I see no conceivable end in sight for my sadness, and that scares me.

I’m angry today wondering how millions of people cheat death and live life on the edge and somehow make it out alive….yet my sister was doing everything right on the night she died…….and now I am left trying to figure out how we can ever possibly go on.

I have feelings inside that I don’t even know how to deal with and feelings that equate to exploding anger and rage……anger for a life taken too soon and rage of a sister who desperately wants to talk to her sister just one more time.

My brain is a mess with confusion and frustration because there are no words that can possibly describe this sadness, emptiness, loneliness, anger, desperation, longing, weariness, depression, fear and grief that is all rolled into one and living inside of us. I’m terrified of my future and my sister's children’s future without the presence of Jessica; terrified that we have all been destroyed beyond repair.

Christmas shopping :(

I sat down this evening….or I guess it is now morning…..thinking I was going to write about how bittersweet my day was Christmas shopping , knowing there were no gifts to be bought for Jessica this year; no long list from her this year.

However, as I sat here I couldn’t get my nieces and nephew off my mind. My heart is so broken for them kids and the mother they lost way too soon. How in the world is that fair to two little girls, and a little boy? I can deal with my pain and sadness but how do young children? I ask for prayers for her children.  I pray that they always feel Jess near by and that they know as they get older their mother is always just a whisper away.

21 days til Christmas.

Eastyn, Brayden, and Harlow spending the last christmas with there mom (Christmas 2009)

The stockings are hung 

By the chimney with care

In hopes that when I wake

You will be there.

Words are inadequate today. My heart is so full of pain and sadness. I fear I will never be whole again. I fear Brayden, Eastyn and Harlow will suffer….they have been robbed of their mom who was whole.

I miss you Jessica and my pain is unmeasurable. The rain today was so significant of all the tears I have shed since you went away.

Hugs to you, you are missed beyond measure.

Love and miss you....

My Angel...

Today I’m at a place where I don’t know whether to rejoice because I like to hope she is somewhere better, or to scream with madness that she was ripped away from us way too soon; never to turn 21 never to marry, never share memories with her children…simply ripped from our lives.

The tears come often but they give no reprieve from the pain….and sometimes the pain is so intense there are no tears to be shed.

As I sat with her today, I became angry, angry that THIS is where I have to go to visit my sister! I realize she is in my heart and is all around me…..but I am angry that I can’t reach out and hug her, angry that I can’t tell her I love her and hear her say “love you more”.  I’m angry that I am living my worst nightmare and angry that there is NO ending to this pain, the most I can ever hope for is that I learn to live again with the pain, that is as good as it is ever going to get for any of us.

I apologize in advanced

Have you ever felt so mad that your skin crawls? Felt so mucky that it is hard to put a smile on your face and even fake it? Felt so bogged down by life that the only thing you end up feeling in the end is numb? I do. Every day

I have spent my life on the pride that I have been raised in a household that was celebrated with self expression and the ability to take up for yourself. We were also told to celebrate our independence. We were raised to believe in what was right, as you remember, but with a sense of great humility. So how were we to know how to balance this gift? To our parents the importance of knowing who we are balanced with a sense of great gratitude and love was of great importance; in theory, an amazing achievement; in life, not probable. So how were we to know where the balance of a gift and the love of a talent were to meet? My bossiness has been well documented along with virtues, but what has come of my amazing ability to love? I know I have plenty of it to go around; but where did it go? Everyone celebrates and congratulates my ability to lead and the “take charge” attitude that was instilled in me as a child, but where did my imaginative and compassionate talent, a greatly praised talent when I was younger, go? If you find it, can you please promptly return it? I know exactly the day and time that all of the ability to care left me: November 22^rd, 2010 at about 1:00 am,when the officer told me about my sister. Does this make me a bad person? I hope not. I can only hope that after a severe bout with anger, resentment, and life that I can return to the human that I once was, before Jessica died. To those of you that have been injured or harmed on my tirade for personal realization and the lack of resilience that I have shown, just know, that I have suffered, and that I can only claim “human”! The pain that my family and I will have to carry with us, for the rest of our time on earth, will be life long, and therefore our resilience will have to prove the same. Pray that we have the strength. Please know that my hurtful words and unkind looks are not emotions that I have control over at this point and I plead insanity! No really, I am trying to recover in the only way that I know possible.  Please know that what I have said or acted upon isn’t me, more than it is a shell of the person that I once was. Let me explain: when you have felt your worse, your sickest, most down, multiply that by 1000. Now multiply that by 1000. And you are alone, with no one to talk to and the idea that world is completely against you, and there is no one to share these sentiments to. That is where I am and have been. The biggest hole you could dig for yourself, covered with cement. Though the idea of a light at the end of the tunnel sounds amazing, I need night goggles to find a glimpse of that light. The worst part is that I have been blessed with the amazing pressure of everyone that surrounds me. Within the first 24 hours of learning of Jessica’s death I was expected to accept, entertain, and maintain the well-being of my entire family, all the while suffering a tremendous loss of which I didn’t have 3 seconds to process on my own. 1:00 am came quick every night for me thereafter and sleep has become somewhat of a miracle in my mind since. I am not making excuses for my inexcusable behavior the last few months, or my inability to filter my thoughts into more educated or respected words, I am simply asking for forgiveness for imperfections that I have no control over at this point. I can do little more than beg at this point, an unbecoming trait in me that I know is tiring. Please know that all of my bad habits (ALL) are inexcusable, but know that I am human, just as you, but that I will strive to create a more harmonious tactic in my judgments, words, and actions. Everyone experiences loss in their life, and ones that are more tremendous than the one I have experienced, I just can't seem to get it together the way most people do. Words are my only comfort. Please know that my insensate banter, my sarcastic comments, and my harsh sentiments are not a reflection of who I am, or used to be, but, unfortunately, who I have become. "But this to shall pass". Right? Jessica was an enormous part of my life and the anger has settled in and made a home in my heart, which neither she nor I would appreciate. Please bear with me while I work to cleanse that hate, hurt, and anger from my heart. I will try very hard to choose my words and actions from thus forth because Jessica wouldn't want it this way. So if I seem covered, painful, spiteful, jealous, and alone....or just wanting to be alone, I am. There is nothing, I have realized, that I can do to relieve it. This is a pain that I must bear on my own. My nerves, words, feelings, and life are on exposed for everyone to see and hear. I write this blog for the hope to save feelings and with the hope to heal another's wounds...I hurt. There I said it. I hurt! The weight that I carry daily will never subside, I know that now, please, please, please be patient.

And besides, how do you learn to say goodbye to a piece of your heart? Please forgive and bear.

The little book...

A few weeks ago mom gave me a ribbon-bound booklet of some stories and poetry you had written for a project for your 11th grade English teacher. It consisted of various journal entries, poems, and articles that you had written throughout the year. It was bound together by three tiny pieces of pink ribbon and I pictured you meticulously tying them together and then I thought, "You probably stole these from some unsuspecting little girl or a cat's toy or something."

I am not sure what it was entirely what it was that took me so long to finally read it; perhaps I was afraid of what I might find in it. I have spent a lot of time trying to gather the broken pieces of me and shelter what little bit is still intact, but you can’t spend your life running from the pain. So I read it, and I am glad that I did. It was like I was seeing your quirky personality and sarcastic tone come to life again on paper. As I was reading it, I could hear your voice saying the words out loud. At the bottom of some of the entries you added a personal commentary, obviously feeling the need to explain the entry to your teacher. It made reading the poems and stories so bitter sweet; knowing how much thought you put into the project as whole, a project about your uncertain future. Some of the entries were heartbreaking while some I literally had tears rolling down my face. There is something about keeping your personality alive that is intoxicating to me and I feel like these writings truly capture the essence of who you were.

The first line of page one is “before you begin reading though, I have some things to explain to you about me”. You are the only person I have ever known that would need to explain to your readers your insane thoughts. I read that line and thought to myself, “Yeah, ya do, that is the understatement of the year”. You go on to explain that, basically, you are the best writer in the world and by withholding your talent from your audience you were somehow depriving the world of something really important, like oxygen. Ha! It is just so you, to fluff your own tail feathers. You even take the time to thank your humble teacher for projecting you into the depths of your talent. You explain the order and “intensity” of your compositions so that your audience can see your “strategy”. In the true spirit of you, you end the first page with, “Have fun. Be good. And may the force be with you! Love you madly, Jessica Lynn .”

After the introduction, comes what the first entry of your “poems” section, a poem you named “Dear Me-In the Future”. It is a poem about 5 years from now, now being November 1^st, 20. Obviously, you never made the five year mark, but reading it was softening and peaceful, none the less. I laughed so hard at so many parts of this poem and felt the crushing loneliness in others. It wasn’t until I got to your personal commentary on Dear Me- In the Future that the weight and impact of your death was truly felt.  The last line in your commentary is “I can’t wait to see what comes of me in 5 years!” I almost expected to turn the page and discover that they were blank because I know that you only had a chance to partially fulfill those 5 years. But luckily, the pages were filled with even more of your crazy, cynical, impossible banter.

Your personality seemed to infect the world and everyone in it, and I have all but given up trying to figure out how this could happen to you, but reading something that came straight your own thoughts has given me a new sense of resilience. Whether it is a poem about a pet squirrel, or a story about revenge, there will be things that we will stumble across our whole lives that will bring you back into our minds. For the rest of our time here there will be sentiments of you in everything that we do, little reminders of the great impact that you had in our lives.  No matter what, you will remain in our hearts and we will always “love you madly”.

Two Months...

I’ve been reading some on grief and trying to understand the stages that everyone speaks of. I’m learning that losing a sibling to something such as a car accident (unanticipated death) has affects such as PTSD; and the death notification plays into that as well.  I never would have thought to link PTSD to losing a sibling to an unexpected accident, but having lived this horrific nightmare for the last two months, that makes perfect sense to me. I know that there is simply no “easy” way to tell a parent or Sibling that their child/sibling has been killed in an accident, but I am certainly haunted by some of the aspects of Jessica’s notification. It’s something since the moment that authorities arrived at the hospital in the wee hours of August 2, 2010 that has rocked me to my core. I was robbed of hours that I could have and should have spent holding my sister’s warm body.

I’m two month's into this tragedy and I still find myself thinking that this just can’t possibly be real. I look around at all of the friends that Jess has left behind and my heart feels a never ending pain. Jessica had a tight group of friends and they all loved each other…watching all of them suffer in pain with the loss of their best friend leaves a hole in my heart. Meanwhile I am trying to find my way in life again,without Jessica, the sister and best friend I loved, adored and looked up to. The magnitude of pain that the death of you has left in the lives of our family, and ALL our friends, is simply a pain WITHOUT definition. The word pain does not even describe what we are feeling, and I am certain I speak for all of us when I say that.

This is what I struggle with; the pain is unmeasurable and completely indescribable, how in God’s name will any of us heal and find our “new normal?”  And I use the term “heal” very loosely here… there will NEVER be a true healing but I need a healing where I feel I can breath again.

I TRUST that God will hold all of us through our anguish, anger, questions and pain…..but to a grieving sister, the enormity of it all seems without end.

I’m writing this tonight because I want you all to know that I am not always so strong, nor are other grieving siblings (mothers, fathers, friends, family). 

I need to invent a word that describes this deep deep feeling of loss… if Jessica were here she’d come up with a really good goofy one and she’d say it in one of her crazy voices. 

To my friends that ask what they can do for me/us….send prayers, every single day. I can’t express enough,  I have no idea how I will get through the rest of my life without Jessica by my side, except with literally, one single step at a time.

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. – Helen Keller

Dreaming of you...

I didn’t sleep very well last night. I haven’t slept really well in a lot of nights but last night I dreamt about you. In the dream you came to me in the middle of the night and you were trying to get me to remember this telephone number. I couldn’t seem to remember it for the life of me you kept saying, “it is a lot like that song, ‘867-5309’, but the number is ‘867-5329’”. So I kept singing it over and over again. I would be singing it and mess up and you would poke me in the rib cage, letting me know that I didn’t have it right, but the more that I sang it the more I kept getting the numbers mixed up. When I woke up this morning I was so angry at myself because it was so important to you that I remember that number and I couldn’t remember it, even with the song. I have literally been angry all morning and I just can’t seem to shake this feeling of complete failure, like I have absolutely let you down when you needed me the most.

After that dream last night, I think I am just trying so desperately to hold on to you, specifically, your life. I think that I am afraid that if I stop trying to pursue your favorite people, places, and things that I will somehow lose sight of who you were.

But we both know who you were. The girl that fell down stairs and ran into parked cars and slept a lot and banged her head on tables. You are my sister and my best friend!

Define Normal

One of the most popular questions that I have heard in the last month is: "What happened?" Normal, everyday people just trying to understand how this could happen to an "ordinary" family, all the while thinking in their head, "If something like this could happen to them, perhaps it could happen to me too." People seem to grasp at straws when faced with tragedy that hits so close to home. My reply to them varies day by day some days (the easier ones) I tell them what occurred. On the bad days, I simply look at them and say, "Does it matter?" This statement might sound cold, but reliving the story doesn't change the fact that you are gone and we are here, left to pick up the broken pieces of our shattered existence. 

I have listened to so many comments, conversations, and statements of the "what ifs" and the "should haves".  Really, does it matter? What if we didn't take her home? What if we did work overtime? I should have said we couldn't take her home. I should have done more. What if we had taken a different route? I even heard about someone asking why you were out at 11:00 at night, they obviously have a severe case of amnesia and can't remember being 20. I guess that is normal, though. It gives people comfort thinking that your fate could have been changed by their words or actions. Something I realized that night in the hospital was that no one could have done anything and nothing could ever bring you back because life doesn't give do-overs. Wouldn't that be nice if it did?

My only regret is one that has nothing to do with what came to be that night, but more to do with the fact that I hadn't eaten up as much time as possible with you while you were here. Now I am left writing my sentiments to you in a blog, which hardly seems sufficient.

The five stages of grief are 1) Denial, 2) Anger, 3) Bargaining, 4) Depression,    5) Acceptance, and I have played witness to at least the first four and have been guilty of acting them out as well. Acceptance, I think, is probably the hardest to grasp because how do accept a 20 year old's sudden death? In true Jessica character, I have actually been taking these stages on in reverse. I was talking to a friend last night and told her that the further I get from the night of August 22nd, the easier it is to deny it ever happened.

Jared took Brayden fishing down at the pond today and I remember last summer when I took you down there to try to teach you how to fish. HA! A lost cause, as I quickly realized. I spent an hour trying to teach you how to bait a hook while you spent an hour texting. I finally gave up on that task and moved on to teaching you how to cast the line, for which you got stuck in a tree, a rock, and the embankment 40 feet opposite to us. By the end of the two hour session, I had baited, cast, and reeled in "your" fish, and you were so excited, but then gave me a lecture about how disappointed PETA activists would be at the cruel treatment of the fish in the creek and went back to texting. I never invited you to go fishing with me ever again.

Even if I did in the moment, I don't regret trying to teach you how to fish that day, and I like to think that you didn't either.

Rain...Rain Go away

It's amazing how tragedy changes you. How one event can change your daily habits and you are constantly noticing things that you were completely blind to before the tragedy occurred.

I was reading the newspaper this morning and for whatever reason, flipped straight to the obituaries (for which you would have said I was being morbid). I noticed that there was a 17 year old boy that died this week in a car accident when he was ejected from his jeep. I thought about his mom and dad and wondered if they were experiencing the same flood of emotions fueled by the same desire to find the answer as to why this happened as your own parents did just a little over a month ago. I read that he had 3 brothers and 2 sisters and wondered if they felt the same emptiness that we feel for you. It brought back a lot of the terrible feelings that I have been trying to oppress. 

Then I started thinking: Is this how it will always be? Every time I pick up a newspaper, will I flip to the obituaries and notice the ages of the people who have tragically lost their lives? Will I have this overwhelming desire to read the tiny paragraph that their sobbing parents had to come up with while planning their child's funeral? Will I always sit there and wonder how they were ever able to sum up their child's life in a 4x4 square on a page of the newspaper? I then figured it was (a harsh but necessary comparison) much like when someone you knows buys a new car and for weeks after you first set your eyes on it you start noticing all of the cars on the road that look like that car. That is just human nature, right?


I guess that it won't stop with the weekly obituaries because I noticed that everything sets off a new wave of thoughts and memories. 

It started raining on my way to school work and I was reminded of the time when we were driving somewhere and it had started to rain. You were quietly sitting there and then out of nowhere you turned and asked me where butterflies went when it rained. I laughed so hard and asked you how or why you were even thinking about that. In true Jessica fashion you smiled and said, "So, do you not, think about it, where do they go when it rains?" Your determination to find out was silly and insignificant to me at the time, not to mention the fact, that I really had no idea. But today after work I so badly wanted to get home so that I could find the answer. 

So here it is, a few years too late, but a valiant effort to say the least. According to kidsbutterfly.org (because if there was anything I have learned in my short  year in college, it is to never trust a .com site),
"Butterflies hide when it rains. They usually go to the same places they do for the night. Some butterflies hide under large leaves, some crawl down into dense leaves or under rocks, and some just sit head down on grass stems or bushes with wings held tightly. If the rains are exceptionally hard or of long duration many of the butterflies become tattered or die." 
 
I wonder if there are butterflies in heaven? Even there are, I'm sure that it doesn't rain

Quarter a day...

If I had a quarter for every time I had someone tell me, "Don't worry, Brittany, time heals all wounds". Really? What about cancer? Or HIV? Time just seems to make them worse.

I have decided that when it comes to grieving, time doesn't heal anything, it only makes it easier to talk about. I really think that a person just runs out of tears, as I seen in the last few days. The sadness is sitting there like a rock in the pit of my stomach, but I just can't release those tiny water droplets. It is like those little carousels at grocery stores that you put a quarter into and to keep going around (in endless circle, mind you) you have to insert another quarter. The only problem is that you used all of your quarters paying for the milk inside the grocery store because it has become like a liquid gold these days. You only get so many tears per incident, and if you have no more quarters...well tough luck.

It is the little things that you start to notice when time has literally stopped, like not being able to shed tears, people tiptoeing around you like they are walking in a museum and if they speak too loudly they may shatter the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa, made of thick canvas and gooey paint, sits on her perch and smiles at you...reminds me of work.

I passed a fire station today and thought about the time that you told me that instead of going to college that you were going to become a fire women. You thought it was just so cool that they got free food and a free place to live. It wasn't until, after laughing heartily, that I had to explain to you that they only stayed at the station when they were on duty and that on average they only made about $8.00 an hour. Hardly enough for your champagne taste. I also remember telling you that money wasn't important and that being a fire fighter was a noble and respectable job, but very dangerous. You would have made a terrible fire fighter, by the way, but I would have loved to see you try.

Dear Jessica

Jessica, my heart is crying out for you. Me and dad went and picked out your headstone this afternoon and I left there with a knot in my stomach that will not go away. I am once again angry that I am helping making these decisions!  I miss you so much and my world is closing in on me this evening. I’m crying for prayers for not only me, but for dad and everyone else affected by this. I love you and I need you. I have no idea how I am going to survive this pain. Seeing your children I realize that I have a piece of you that is growing every day. I am still sadden by the fact that they will not know who their mother is. I wish you were hear every day. 

Remeber what's important

26 days without you…..I believe it is getting harder rather than easier. I think in cases such as these, time does NOT heal….time without you simply makes me ache for you more (as if that is even possible). I’ve thought a lot lately about the things people ask and say during times like these, and as most people realize there just simply are NO words that can ease this pain. I’ve caught myself a few times answering “fine” to the question “how are you doing?” However, more often than not I answer truthfully and simply say “not good”. I saw a friend of mine wearing a necklace at Jessica’s viewing that read “Due in March” and I remarked on it how that was such a cool idea; as a pregnant woman you get asked a million times “when are you due”?  It made me think that I wish I had a necklace or a shirt or flag to wave that simply mentioned how I was feeling or perhaps even warning people “back off, not a good day” – ha, I actually like that idea.

I’ve thought a lot today about all of the things Jessica will never get to experience, or I with her. We were planning vacation for this spring.The realization that we will not get to experience those visits together has me utterly paralyzed with sadness. The fact that her three children will have no memories with their mother that they will truly remember. She has two twin daughters that were  born July 2nd 2009, and a son who was born april 2nd 2007. Weird how you put the days together and it's 22, which was the date of her death August 22nd.  

I then started thinking about all of the things in life that people take for granted (myself included). I know from August 22, 2010 on, my appreciation for even the smallest detail in life has changed. Of course directly after an accident and tragedy of this magnitude everyone says the same thing: “you don't have forever”….but I also see people forget that very soon and get busy with life again. I pray that my blog gets read and shared so that others are reminded DAILY that the people in your life are what matters. Not the car you drive, the house you live in, the vacation you are taking, the job you hold, the promotion you are seeking……but the people. Many times that realization comes way too late for people and their loved ones are already gone and they are left with a mound of guilt.

I loved my sister with all my heart and soul and I love the relationship that we had and the honesty and love that we shared. Jess was one special individual and not just because she was my sister, more so because she simply loved her family and friends and lived every day in the moment.

2007 Prom