The Pain I Hide

It seems like emotional pain is WAY more taboo than it has to be.  Our society isn't sure how to respond to it because it makes them uncomfortable.  In turn, it makes the person going through the pain uncomfortable as well.

Speaking from that side of things, I can assure you that while I seem consumed by our grief and pain, the last thing any person going through a hard emotional ordeal wants is to make anyone else feel uncomfortable or even have to feel what the outskirts of that pain is like.  In fact, I do whatever I can to shield you from it because I don't want to ever have to know someone else went through or is going through the same thing.  Yes, I have bad days where you get a glimpse of where I am and what life is like, but for the most part I never show it and you will never see.

That place is sacred.  Dark and painful, yes, but it's the place where I remember in vivid detail who my daughter was.  The emotions are raw and gut-wrenching, but they are MINE.  I know one day I'll be able to slowly release them, but right now, they are all I have of her.  The fast and busy pace of the holidays kept me distracted and occupied when the numbness wore off, but now...in the time after the holidays...it's hitting and it's hitting hard.

I know that after the time passes that you see me constantly on the verge of tears or after a certain allotted time period has passed, it's natural to assume I am "better" or "getting there", but I'm not.  The fact is that I don't have a "first year" to get through.  I lost a lifetime.  I lost the first day of school, prom, honor roll, kissing boo-boo's, braiding hair, dressing her for her wedding, the grandchildren she would have had...  So you see?  While the initial pain of losing my daughter subsides, every day that comes at me is a "first" because I would have had her that day, but now do not.

Every day that I wake up, I wonder what could have been.  I see my friends' babies growing and doing things and wonder if Kaidi would be at the same point, a little behind or a little ahead.  When she would have shown me her first toothless smile.  Would she be sitting up?  Trying to crawl after her brother and keep up with his energy?  What would she look like?

I wish I could answer, but I don't know and can't know.  THAT is the pain I hide.