71 WEEKS...

Seventy-one is an odd number - not usually one of the BIG anniversary dates. It's not a 10, a 25, or 100 - it is just a miserable prime number with no meaning to most of us.  It does not even total a normal month - just 71 weeks.  But, it has been 71 weeks sincce Tash died.  It is so hard tobelieve.

Seventy-one weeks = 497 days
497 days = 11,928 hours
11,928 hours = 75,680 minutes
75,680 minutes = 42,940,800 seconds

Those are all just numbers.  Playing with those numbers allows my mind to wander - to find another focus.  But, when I am done - when I see the enormity of those numbers, it stops me in my tracks.  Those numbers will never get smaller.  As they increase, it kind of becomes like mileage - taking me farther and farther away from my baby girl - farther from the life I had - the life I wanted - the life I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE!

I know I have always heard that life is not fair - and, I knew it wasn't - but, I guess I never really understood how unfair it could be - how unfair it would become.  SO, I sit here on a Saturday night - watching the clock - looking at the time 9:43 - that is when that call came - the call I had always dreaded - but, always felt like would come.  How I wish that I ha been wrong.

Seventy-one weeks can completely change your life - it certainly has mine.  I question everything now - I take nothing for granted.  But, I look back at all I did take for granted - and, feel guilt - which brings on cases of shouldas, wouldas, and couldas.  These can last days - and, they are a heavy burden.

Seventy-one - I don't know why it sticks in my head - why it took over my thoughts today - but, here it is, stuck -

On the other side of the coin, Tash has gotten to miss a few things she hated over the last 71 weeks - staring with 355 dialysis treatments.  Who knows how many hospitalizations and doctor appointments there would have been?  I have to go back and look at things like that.  There are days when everything is so horrible - if I don't work to let it go, I would follow over the edge of this cliff I stand on - and, let me tell you, I am hanging on by a very thin thread, as it is...

I work everyday to think of something I am thankful for - without looking into the past.  I could make a list  thousands of pages long of all the things I am thankful for between the years of 1984 and 2012.  But, while holding the past close, I try to stay in the here-and-now as much as possible when I can.  I don't even dare think about the future at this point in my life - I think, if I did, I would become irreversibly bitter, angry, and sad.  SO, here I am in the present - working hard to be PRESENT in every day - and, today, I am thankful for enough - I have enough to eat, drink, to breathe, to sustain me.  For this moment, I will not wish for MORE - I will be happy with exactly where I am at this moment.

In seventy-one weeks, I have learned a lot about being satisfied with what I have - I am not always successful - but, I keep trying - at some point, I hope to be able to be be more than satisfied.  I would like to touch happiness again - to taste it - to roll it around in my mouth and truly relish it.  I miss being happy - I miss being able to laugh, without a flash of guilt - I miss looking forward to tomorrow - I miss all the things that were entwined to make my life what it was 71 weeks ago.

Here I am....71 weeks later - still stumbling through the field of grief - picking up stones and turning them over - most days, all I find are ugly, misshapen stones that I don't want - but, I am starting to have days where I find a beautiful stone here and there - ones with a bit of shine - I find them a little more often lately - and, I am learning how to unload some of the heavy, burdensome stones of guilt and regret - it is all a process, I guess.  No, I will never get OVER it, but, I am learning to get THROUGH it -

I love you, Tash - more than you ever knew....MOM