The five stages of grief have been on repeat that last couple of days.
It looks something like this: This isn’t my life.
Are you kidding me that this is my life? There’s nothing fair or right about it!
Well, God, let’s just bring her back. I promise to not unlearn all that I’ve learned.
She’s not coming back. I’m going to live the rest of my life without my daughter. Why am I still living?
It’s going to be okay. Keep stepping. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’ve got your boys to get through all this.
Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance
Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance
Over and over again. I don’t always hit every step. But the range of emotions are just all day long.
I consider myself quite the expert on playing mind games. Resetting my brain when it gets into an unhealthy pattern.
These last few days, it’s just felt impossible. I could say it’s lack of sleep, conflict, hormones, or politics.
But the truth is: Rory should be turning 12 in a little over a week. I’m staring down another birthday without her.
Twelve.
My baby would be twelve on February 6th.
Every birthday without her guts me. But this one, we would have had a fun year of celebrating new things with her. Moving up into the youth program at church, graduating elementary school, and embracing her true preteen drama.
My body physically aches for those experiences with her.
Then I go through the stages again. Luckily for me, the last step ends with hope and propels me into action.
My life has a purpose and it’s to love. And I recognize that purpose because Rory was born. And she was mine.
In the weeks after Rory’s death, I recorded memories.
I wanted it in my voice.
How I remembered my baby girl.
I looked at some of the videos for the first time the other day.
It spoke to me in two ways.
One, I miss Rory! I want a million more memories. At least one for every day I’ve been without her these three years.
Two, I’m not that same Stephanie. I feel like a lifetime has passed in some ways. In those videos I was engulfed in the flames of grief. As flames have turned to embers, I’m emerging reshaped. In almost every aspect of my life.
Three years ago I don’t know that I could fully understand what that meant.
Today, I feel like I should show a cycle of PTSD for me. (Skip the next chunk of lines if stuff like this triggers you.)
I open a news article. COVID numbers are up. Especially in my county. My brain starts. What if I get COVID? What if I have it? What if I’m asymptotic? Oh my gosh. What if I give to someone in my family? Oh my gosh. What if I already did? They’re going to get sick. Oh my gosh. What if they get hospitalized? I can’t be with them. What if they die? It’s my fault. Again. They’re going to die. Just like Rory. I couldn’t save her. I compressed on her chest. I gave her breath. But I couldn’t save her. Her lifeless body. She’s gone. More people I love are going to leave me.
On bad days, it’s a panic attack. My brain cycling through that night. Over and over again.
On good days I can stop my brain and think through it. Process.
Breathe. You don’t have COVID. Breathe. You’re being careful. You’re doing all you can. Breathe. No one in your family is sick right now. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
I know I’m far from the only one that’s triggering right now. For various reasons. In different ways.
Oh man, it’s so important to understand that we don’t know what people are fighting. We don’t know what they’re going home to. We don’t know what they’re walking around with every day in their head.
Yesterday, as I was reading scriptures with my boys a phrase stuck out. “Tarry a little longer”.
To mourn with, to love, to be with those around us a little longer, in different ways.
With the person that needs someone to talk to.
Call someone that might be lonely.
Drop a treat to someone that’s been isolating.
Be more patient when I’m ready to throw my hands up.
Show love instead of showing up to fight.
Drop a text to let someone else know they’re thought about and missed.
Give more of myself to those that I have the amazing opportunity to know and love.
Rory Ann Moore Foundation 