Struggles
I am not doing well these days. I am having a very hard time putting one foot in front of the other. I am having a hard time keeping strong. I am losing it. I have a low tolerance for bullshit these days. I can’t stand all the heartbreak the kids and I have been through, well before you decided you couldn’t take it anymore. I am not going your route, don’t get me wrong, but I am struggling to get through each day. I wear this fake smile on my face so everyone thinks I am doing fine when inside I am slowly dying. My heart can’t take much more pain and I don’t know where to turn, what to do. I need to get the hell out of dodge and never look back.
Please give me strength. Help me. And quick.
Jan
Here we are in Jan. I haven’t written to you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think of you. Everyday.
Some days are harder than others. I am trying really hard to get back to NJ. I need to be near family. I need more support than I have here.
The kids need more structure. Mike is still a dick and isn’t being such a great father (not that he ever was, as you know).
Ive met someone. We have been “talking” for a few months now. Well, since August. He is a sweetheart. You would love him.
The kids are doing alright. Trying to cope with what life throws at us.
I miss you terribly mom. I wish you were here. I love you.
Holidays
Today is not a good day.
It started yesterday, really. I went Christmas shopping. I see snowmen everywhere I go. I pick them up and think “oh, mom would like this one” and remember that I am not buying you something this year. Again.
Kids are starting to get upset again as well. Makes it harder on me because I don’t know what to tell them. And sometimes Im not strong enough to tell them anything.
I hope you are doing well up there. I miss you horribly. Now more than ever. I love you mom.
Its a difficult day
I don’t know if its the holidays coming up that is making me feel this way or what but I am really missing you today. So much it hurts…….
I still wonder why you did what you did? Why you left us here with no one. The kids are going to wake up on Christmas morning alone when you used to be there. They have no family other than myself that really cares for them like you did. I am so mad that you took that away from them.
I bought the kids necklaces…..they carry your ashes with them close to their heart. Sometimes that’s not enough though. I want you here.
I hope you have found some peace, because right now you are causing some major turmoil inside of me.
I miss you mom. More than words can say………
Missing you…..
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you.
This was my second Thanksgiving without you. I made it home to be with Dad though, so that was great. I don’t know what I would have done if I stayed here.
I am miserable in GA without you. I don’t want to be here anymore. I hate the house and I just want to get out.
But Im happy mom. I have found what I have been looking for and working toward reaching my goals to get there.
I still cry at times out of the blue when something reminds me of you. I still pick up the phone to call you. I still ride by your house and want to pull in to check on you.
Im still lost without you, but Im finding my way….slowly but surely.
I love you mom.
It’s Been Awhile
I miss you so much it hurts. Its been awhile since I have written you but as you know I have been busy getting ready for the year anniversary of your death, walking my first 5K for Suicide Prevention and Awareness and trying to get the house together.
I never stop thinking of you. And on days like today, I wish I could call you.
I love you mom.
Sleep
I haven’t slept in three days. I am a walking zombie. I don’t know where to turn, where to go, who to call, who to talk to. Im just going through the motions.
Yesterday was a little difficult.
This all started because I cleaned my carport. The memories flooded me and I couldn’t get the gate shut. I still can’t. Yesterday they took the “trash” away. The “trash” that I didn’t want to save, I didn’t want to sell, I just wanted gone. The constant reminders that you are gone, I wanted gone.
It was difficult to watch. But I couldn’t turn my eyes away. Dave is the one that came to do it. He put my railing up too. Well started to anyway. He knew it was hard, I mean, he has been there for me for years. He was one of the first to come help clean out your house. Dave is also the one that convinced me “its been a year Kristina, time to do something about the carport”
And so it begins…….I just need to find someone to help push the gate closed.
I can’t hold on much longer
My stomach is in knots.
I hear a siren in the distance and the memories come rushing back causing my head to spin. I couldn’t bear hearing a siren for weeks after. I would close my ears and just cry.
I remember the night so clear as if it was yesterday.
I remember yelling at the ambulance drivers and the firemen and the police officers. They all came rushing to your house, after I told them you were dead. After I told them you killed yourself. They all came rushing then just stopped because they knew. But no one told me officially, although I knew as well. Your body was hard, your expression was plain. And I just yelled. “At least pretend you are trying to save her” “No one officially told me she was dead, at least try to do something”. I remember saying to the one cop “If someone is going to tell me, it better not be him (pointing to the first officer who arrived and treated me like I was a suspect in a murder). It better not be him to tell me because he is a dick”. I was mean. I was a mess. The whole neighborhood heard my sobs. They wouldn’t let me come say goodbye. They told me the ambulance was there for me not you. Because I kept fainting, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t stop crying. All the neighbors that knew our history came running up and tried to hold me. Tried to hug me. Tried to be there for me. I was mean. I was a mess.
I don’t remember the week after. I was barely getting through. I couldn’t even take care of my children. I had to send them away. I couldn’t even tell them that their Grammy was gone. They were home in bed and I had to send them to someone’s house that night because I couldn’t even walk without sobbing and struggling for breathe. I didn’t tell them you were gone. Dad called Mike and they told them together. My babies lost their Grammy.
Kathy drove over immediately after finding out and just let me lay on the couch all curled up in the fetal position, sobbing.
Shelda came and greeted the people that delivered the fruit baskets, the food, the love. She too let me lay there and sob.
Dave came up from Florida to just sit with me. And let me sob.
The love poured in. The support was there. But I shut it out.
And I feel like I am doing it again.
I am a mess. I am sitting here crying at work, have been for two days. I keep hearing “its understandable” “you’ll be ok” “you’ll get through”. I know I will, I already did. And I want to get through again. I want to get through without pushing people away. I want to be able to call a friend crying my eyes out and not worrying about whether I am bothering them or not. I want to be strong enough to ask for help….but Im not. I am losing my grip. And the date is still so far away.
I can’t hold on much longer.
“Feeling so lost and all alone
I want to bury all the memories
Leave no trace that you ever existed
Maybe then I could sleep at night
Maybe then my eyes will be free…
From all the tears
Don’t want to have to drag this pain with me
Everywhere I go …
I want to be normal again
The scar is too deep
And the emptiness makes me cold
I to feel like I have gone…
Into another world
A world where happiness
Is an obstacle
Laughter a challenge
And complete is almost impossible…”
30 Days
30 days. In 30 days, it will have been a year since you took your life. In 30 days, I am not sure how I am going to not think about that day. It still haunts me at times. The night that I found you. The night that I yelled at the rescue workers. The night that the detective made me feel like I killed you….even though I kept screaming that you killed yourself.
30 days. Will I be able to be strong with for the kids? Will I be able to hold myself together enough to hold my babies?
30 days.
In 30 days, I will be in NJ surrounded by love.
30 days.
I can do it.
In Memory of Tara Tay Taylor
You better take care of her.
Im mad at you right now, so I can’t even say please.
Emma is so distraught over losing you, it kills me.
The kids want necklaces to put your ashes in and I can’t even afford them. They want to get them engraved. They picked them out. The two of them were sitting in front of the computer together deciding what to get. “Let’s engrave it with “We miss you Grammy- (next line) 1955-2009- (next line) We miss and love you.”” Every day they ask me when they will get them, I have to tell them I can’t afford them now, its not in the budget, maybe for Christmas….
Rudy called me today. At work. He never calls me at work. Hysterical. Tara Tay had to be put down. “Kristina, what am I going to do when I walk in the house and she isn’t there”, “what am I going to do on the weekend when she doesn’t greet me at the door”. I know the pain.
I can’t tell him the answers because I have my own questions. “Why did you leave me knowing I needed you” “Why did you leave my babies, knowing they needed you” “How can you look down and watch when Emma cries and then the school calls me and my heart breaks and rolls down into my stomach then turns and makes me sick then when I get home and I hug my baby and she is ok, and Im not and have no one to turn to”. “How can you be ok with taking your life over something stupid”.
I have to admit Im torn. I want to be in NJ on Oct. 20, with my family but on the other hand, I don’t. They weren’t there for me when I went through taking care of you, when I emailed them and asked for help and got nasty comments made about me and my babies.
Im going through some many emotions again, and I know why.
I can recall the night. The whole night from the minute I answered the phone to the minute that I had to take responsibilty for myself. I was a mess.
I am a mess.
And today, I blame you.
Today, I am very mad at you.
Today, I miss you more than you will ever know.
I had to tell my baby, the baby that I can’t be strong for because I have all of these emotions of love, hate, anger, sadness, happiness, whatever over her biggest loss, that another family has died.
And I had to do it alone. Again.
You better take care of her better then you did your grandkids. You better take care of her because she loved you and you loved her. You better take care of her becaue you know how much Emma loved her. You better take care of her because you Emma is worried you won’t. Emma is worried that Tara Tay can’t wake you up like she couldnt. You better do better.
You better take care of Tara Tay….for Emma.
RIP little doggie. We love you.
My Words....My Thoughts 