It's been almost eight months since our daughter passed away. Neither my husband or I are doing very well, but I can see he is doing far worse than I. It is difficult to watch him, this man I have known and been with since I was 17 years old. That's a lot of history. I know him better than anyone else in his life, even his mom and sister. We have pretty much always lived in the western part of the state's, in California for most of our lives together, until we moved to Las Vegas about 16 years ago. His mom and sister live on the east coast, one in Delaware and the other in Maryland.
It's always been he and I, and then he and I and Jennifer. We were a family...always us three together, against the world as we used to say. Now it's back to just he and I again. We will never, ever be that family again. We, Tony and I will never be the same again.
His grief is heart breaking to watch everyday. I would do anything to try to ease his suffering, I will always remain by his side, I will hold him up and be strong for him, I will hold him when he breaks down, I will comfort him. Some people have said to me that he needs to pull it together. Those are people who have not lost a child, a child who lived her whole life with us, until her death at age 23.
He is a man tormented. His grief is a living, breathing thing. When he breaks down when we drive down a street, and he remembers driving down that street with her, or going to a doctor's office and he asks me if she sat where we are sitting, I don't judge him, I understand how painful this can be. I've done the same thing, purposely sitting on another side of a waiting room, or driven down a street and remember her sitting in the seat beside me. Just a couple of weeks ago, when he was in the hospital after his surgery, I parked on a side of the hospital where she used to drop me off, when I worked there, and as I was getting out of my car, I saw a car sitting where she used to sit, waiting for me to come out, and I saw a woman come out of the hospital, and the driver of the car get out, a young woman, and go around to the passenger side, as the other woman, most likely the mom get into the drivers side of the car. As I watched this, I saw Jennifer and I, doing this exact same thing. I got a huge lump in my throat, and tears filled my eyes. So I understand exactly what he feels, when he is reminded of a time with her, that he now experiences without her. It hurts. It hurts a lot.
So when I hear that he is taking this too far, or that he needs to pull himself together, it make me both angry and sad. We are going through the loss of our only child, there is no "road map" of how we are "supposed" to be grieving. We never chose to be on the path we find ourselves on. We would do anything to not be where we are, to not have lost our daughter. And any parent who has lost a child would say the exact same thing. None of us chose this life we now must live without our child. And all of us, parents who have experienced this loss, would all do anything to not be who we are now.
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