The shock wearing off

We have been in especially rough water lately. The initial shock from Jennifer's sudden death on December 5th, is beginning to slowly wear off. It still feels as if someone took a sledge hammer, and swung with all their strength, right into your gut, leaving you feeling like you were just run over by a freight train. For the past several months, we have been walking around like zombies. At times you find yourself awash with tears, drowning in an ocean of pain. At other times you feel numb, which I don't yet know if that is a good thing or not. I was pretty much numb for the first four months. I remember telling Tony about it, worrying that there was something wrong with me, I couldn't feel pain, or any other emotion for that matter, for the longest time. I remember Tony telling me that it wasn't a bad thing, and that he wished he could feel numb for a while.

Numbness like this is terrible when you are in the middle of it.  I walked around feeling like my heart was encased  in a block of ice. I wanted to feel something...though I wasn't ready, which apparently my brain knew. 

Now the shock has started to wear off and with that it brings all the pain and unending sorrow of losing Jennifer front and center. Now all of the things that happened that night, driving to the hospital, learning that my only child was gone, hearing the news, seeing Tony stricken and crying in that little room the nurse brought me to initially, and then being taken to the room where she lay on a gurney, replay over and over in my mind. Tony has been expressing what had happened in our home...when the paramedics put the pads on her to shock her, he having to stand there and watch as her body responded, and he told me a couple of days ago how angry and upset he was that they didn't cover her breasts. I told him that they couldn't, as they were working on her. But he is still upset about that. He was crying the other day about it.  Feeling like he should have been able to do that for her, that he didn't insist that they cover her. He feels like he wasn't doing his job, as her father, to protect her in some small way. That he should have done something, tried to give her some dignity at that moment.  He gets very angry, in his anguish, that the emergency personnel seemed like they didn't care. But, this is the father in him, responding to the desire or need  to protect his daughter, against a threat or a perceived wrong he feels he must act upon. So standing there watching this all unfold, triggered this emotional response that he should do something in a situation he could not contribute to and had to just stand by and helplessly watch. What father wouldn't have difficulty?

So we continue to try and stay afloat in these stormy seas we currently find ourselves in.  And with the shock wearing off, we see those first few minutes, hours and days again, but more clearly...reliving and reflecting upon this nightmare that thrust itself upon us on December 5th, 2012. Now questions arise about the days leading up to her death, and about the evening of her passing. 

But no answers are yet forthcoming. 

We continue without daily lives, no longer zombies, but now, we are the walking wounded. We are broken and I honestly don't know if we will ever be repaired.