<<the one that starts talking about one thing and then goes on a depressing rampage..>>
2004-05-18 - 7:16 a.m.

So we attempted to go camping last Friday.

As we were driving to the site, we hear "tornado warnings for St.Clair county in effect until 7pm", which of course was right where we were heading.

It took us about 3 hrs to get there because of rush hour traffic and weather. bah. And when we got there, everything was soaked. The campground was damn near flooded. So. We drove around, checked it out and left. Hard to tent camp in a bunch of puddles- but it was a REALLY nice KOA and we'll take the girls back there somehow. We ended up driving another 45 minutes north to my mom's "new" place she bought in Port Sanilac and camped on air mattresses in her garage. Her new house will be nice when they finish it. It was completely water damaged so they had to gut it and are re-doing it. Still. She only paid $29k for it and its real close to Lake Huron. It will be a nice weekend relaxing place away from home.

Oye. This is going to get long..

Saturday the girls and I drove home and left Larry for the night to work. Kayleigh was being an obnoxious brat the whole trip home. bah!

Then Saturday night I get a call from Shawna (Christy's sister) wanting to know if I got a letter from her mom... I said..'no, but i haven't checked the mail in a few days...why? good news...bad news??' She said Chev sent out thank you cards and wanted to make sure we got hers. I'm sure it will be sitting in our p.o. box this afternoon...and I'm not going to want to open it. It still feels like her wilder days where she would just disappear and we would be out of touch for a few months.. its still so hard to beleive that this is real and she is really gone and not coming back.

A close friend of mine & Christy's from jr. high came over unexpectedly last Thursday. I hadn't talked to her since a few days after Christy passed, and the last time I saw her (for the first time in several years) was the weekend of Valentines day when Christy was last down. I walked into my house and Jenny was just sitting there, totally trashed, beer in her hand. It was quite akward at first.. she ended up talking me into having a few drinks and as usual.. a few turned into too many. Jenny ended up having an emotional breakdown at my house that night, about Christy mainly. It was hard for me to deal with and support her because she is at a different stage in her grieving then I am and she feels terrible about not being able to go to the funeral (which mind you was 350 miles away). I tried to be there for her, but I felt like I was just repeating myself and it wasn't sinking in. I kept saying "we've all just suffered this huge tremendous loss, but you have to have some hope that she is in a better place now and is comfortable and living the life she has always wanted. We are so fortunate that we had the opportunity to have such a beautiful person in our life for the time she was here..and it hurts so much that she is gone, but atleast she is finally at peace". And then Jenny tells me that the night Christy stayed with her that weekend she was down that they smoked crack together and she is afraid that she killed her. It was just too much for me to deal with- I ended up going to bed because we had both just had too much to drink and I just couldnt think anymore about this.

When I woke up this morning I was hungover and had to go to work, and was thinking about the night before, and this wave of selfishness just hit me and I kept thinking- you know... she's lucky! She gets to remember CHRISTY as she was that night, the last night she saw her, and I'm stuck with the images of her on life support dying and swollen without a reason. I'm stuck with the memories of holding her swollen hands, of painting her fingernails that were turning purple from lack of oxygen, of driving 350 miles delirious, in shock- trying to keep Shawna calm- trying to make sense of this all. I'm stuck with the memories of her laying there in her casket, so swollen and distorted that it didn't even look like HER. I'm stuck with the memories of Ashia crying at her funeral and not understanding and of her little brother Joseph trying to pretend that this wasn't affecting him- I'm stuck with the memories of it finally sinking in for Kayleigh and having to hear her sweet little four year old (not even!) voice say "mommy? why did cwisty have to die? I miss her so much!". I'm stuck in this emotional hell where all I can think of most hours of the day is her dead. I'm having a hard time remembering her being alive. I'm haunted by these images every night. I can't sleep. I can't drive to work without them being there. I can't go to school without them being there. They are everywhere. I can't get rid of them. Right after her death I told everyone that I felt very fortunate that I had a chance to say good bye to her while she was on life support, even if she was already 'brain dead', but now? I wish I could just have not seen all that i saw. It was important for us to be there for Chev & Shawna and the boys.. but I want to remember the GOOD times we had- the ones that the pictures I have of her show, and everytime I try to remember the good times, its like this vicious cycle of horrific memories from the night in the hospital.. me holding her swollen hand, which was starting to go cold, painting her nails, calling home from up north, listening to the nurse tell us how her body was going to shut down whether we pulled her from life support or not, being asked by my sister in law to help her and shawna make the decision to take her off life support, to finally leaving the hospital at one am, when she was still 'alive' and going to the island, and passing out because my eyes were just aching from crying so much..to finding out at 7 am the next morning that she had passed, and was on her way to Canada for an autopsy. This is the hell I am stuck in! Then I get to breathe for two days, and almost forget, because I'm not looking death in the face so much.. but then there are all the arrangements to be made, family members to greet.. had to figure out a way to get my children up north...and then Wednesday came all of the sudden and it was time for the service. I didn't want to see her in the casket. But Ashia did. And I couldn't let her go alone. So I went with her and I couldn't beleive what I saw. That wasn't HER. It didn't look anything like HER. But I knew it was. And a silly part of me though that maybe, just maybe if I held her hand, it wouldn't be cold and stiff..but I was wrong.

I just want some inner peace... initially I only felt that parts of that Evanescence song applied to this situation.. but now i see where the lyrics completely apply..

i'm so tired of being here
suppressed by all of my childish fears
and if you have to leave
i wish that you would just leave
because your presence still lingers here
and it won't leave me alone

these wounds won't seem to heal
this pain is just too real
there's just too much that time cannot erase

when you cried i'd wipe away all of your tears
when you'd scream i'd fight away all of your fears
and i've held your hand through all of these years
but you still have all of me

you used to captivate me
by your resonating light
but now i'm bound by the life you left behind
your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
your voice it chased away all the sanity in me

these wounds won't seem to heal
this pain is just too real
there's just too much that time cannot erase

when you cried i'd wipe away all of your tears
when you'd scream i'd fight away all of your fears
and i've held your hand through all of these years
but you still have all of me

i've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
and though you're still with me
i've been alone all along

Somehow my other vents about school just don't deserve to be in this entry..

Stephanie.

<< >>

Last 5 Entries:
Farewell, Diaryland. - 2004-11-01
not the ultimate sacrifice..but a pretty big one... - 2004-06-23
well. doesnt this suck? - 2004-06-12
A trip to paradise - 2004-06-10
Bittersweet memories, part 2 - 2004-05-27