Almost everything in life is tolerable because of one word. Hope. Even the worst scenarios--poverty, divorce, illness, a missing loved one--contain some element of hope, no matter how small.
Except death. No hope.
Some may argue there is hope in death--hope that the person went to Heaven and that we will meet again one day. While I have faith that this is true, it doesn't help the NOW--the current world/life we have to live day in and day out.
With the death of a child and/or sudden traumatic death, which I have experienced when Alicia was killed, the order of things is upside down and inside out. There is no way to put it all in order, to make sense of it, or to hope that there must be a REASON for all this.
Quite frankly, I don't care what the reason is right at this moment. Even if it's all part of the biggest and most fantastic plan that God has, I don't care.
He made me have feelings, a heart, and most importantly a motherly instinct and bond with my children. To expect me to just rest on the faith that I will see my oldest daughter again "one day" and that her horrific death at age 19 was "for a reason" is unfathomable. To put it another way, it's UNREASONABLE.
Today I went somewhere that I hadn't been in many years. It is a place that holds a lot of memories for our family. Alicia used to go to this place frequently. It brought back thoughts and feelings and roused some very uncomfortable frustration (bordering on anger) inside of me to think that all these people have so much and are doing so much and Alicia got short-changed, to put it mildly.
How do I cope with those feelings? Do I comfort myself by saying she's in an even BETTER place now and one day I will join her? No, that brings little comfort because it is too conflicting. I have my youngest daughter here who still needs me and I have a life here on earth that needs to be lived out. To yearn to join Alicia is not healthy or productive for me.
The irony and the paradoxes I have to face each day is simply indescribable. One minute I see people smiling, laughing, enjoying a lovely Florida spring day (myself included) and the next minute I am at the cemetery, changing the flowers at my daughter's grave site.
I can't even fully enjoy the memory of Alicia. Not only is everything upside down, inside out, but it's also sideways. I have to look at things and think about things in my peripheral only. The second I allow myself to look straight at a photo of Alicia or to really FEEL a memory, relive it, or to picture Alicia standing in front of me now, a feeling comes over me that is so huge and overpowering, I must immediately halt what I am doing. Don't look, don't think, don't remember or the tidal wave will pull you under.
I can love her, miss her, have memories of her (shrouded in mist) but I am not allowed to really feel her deep in my heart and soul. Even as I type these words, I see that they don't even break the surface of describing the enormous emotion this is.
Hopelessness. It's the closest word to this feeling. That's in addition to all the other feelings of grief. Hopelessness. That is the problem with death.
