(I feel that at this point if you are a reader of my blog you know I don’t filter my mind…my words. That being said… this one is laden with swears…you have been warned.) That’s all it took. Fucking pumpkins. I went to the store yesterday. Fucking Walmart. I had to pick up a few things for my little one’s Halloween party coming up in a week. Googly eyes…skeletons…glow in the dark little bats…you know, fun Halloween stuff. I turned the corner and saw all this cute, sparkly Halloween décor…. and thought, I should pick out a few new things for Maddi. I held a sparkling, smiling pumpkin in my hand that said “Happy Halloween.” And that is all it fucking took. That’s it. Right there in the aisle…one of the main aisles, wouldn’t you fucking know it… I lost it. My eyes welled with tears. They streamed down my face. Why? Well…I thought to myself, “I should pull out her Halloween flag and vampire duck…and…oh my god… Halloween is in a week and I haven’t decorated for her yet. Can I go today? No. Fuck. I can’t go all fucking week…by the time I decorate Halloween will be almost gone.”
Time had slipped right through my fingers. I have been so busy…with what is right in front of me…and you know what, she is fucking not…she is not right in front of me anymore. And decorating for her….just….slipped my fucking mind. It wasn’t like I have forgotten her or that she won’t be here…or that memories of Halloween gone by haven’t been dancing painfully beautifully through my mind for weeks now… but that doesn’t fucking matter. I FORGOT. I FUCKING FORGOT. And here I am… at home…. because I had to work in town…and now I have to take care of home…because it’s right here in front of me…and SHE’S NOT. And I scream at the top of my lungs….cry until I can’t fucking breathe…because my soul can’t take this sad anymore. I have to pour it out. I cry everyday but this type of sad…it builds and builds and then it just gushes out…out of the gaping wound that is my broken heart…And it’s not fair. And it’s not right. And it shouldn’t be her. She should be right in front of me…. reminding me… “Mama we need to get my costume” …. “Mama…are we carve that pumpkin?” But she’s not.
I don’t get to see her run door to door with her sister… three times I did. This year will make four years that Carly has done it on her own. That means she has spent more time here on Earth without her sister than with her. Do you know how fucking bad that hurts? I don’t get to help her pick a costume…help her put on some fancy makeup. No. I get to make painted rocks and painted pumpkins…and I get to sit with her…at a fucking GRAVE…not one set up for Halloween…but one that is always there… a stone I can’t tuck away until next year…. but one that sits there in the Earth marking the days that she lived here on Earth…one that screams out the day she left. A stone that screams my truth. My child died.
I am tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep will ever help. Tired of time slipping away. Tired of the world going on…moving on… Tired of watching other children grow….and not ever knowing who she would be. Tired of aching arms…tired of my little one’s tears for a sister whose memory is fading from her mind and it’s breaking her heart…. Tired of being on the outside looking in…Tired of missing Maddi…I just want her to come home. I just want to take it back. I just want to wake up from this living nightmare.
I am tired of putting pumpkins next to headstones. But I won’t ever stop doing it. Not until the life drains from me. Not until I take my last breath. But dammit…. I fucking hate cemetery pumpkins. I just want normal ones. I just want Maddi.
Sing Her Song 