Drained

I woke up this morning thinking about what needs to be done this morning and anything I needed hubs to know before he went out the door for work.

(This would be 5am, so not my usual "up" time)

Then just before hubs shut the font door to lock it...my mind went to an old and familiar place.

Back to the Ronald McDonald house we stayed in while in Seattle. The sound of the door was the same. Then my mind jolted back to the smell and feeling that was always present. Then the memory of me on the floor begging the nurse on the other line to tell me that I was just dreaming and that tomorrow I would see TanaLee. The nurse was calm and told me that I wasn't crazy and said that many parents that loose their babies call to "check" on their babies because of habit or just to feel that "normal" sensation to calm their minds. I must have been on the phone for an hour with her...I cried myself to sleep that night...wanting it all just to be a terrible nightmare.

My mind than went back to earlier that day....when doctors paged me to come in and see my daughter....then later when my life was halted by the words, "she not going to make it". The terror and disbelief that washed over me....I had hoped for so long....did everything....why couldn't there be something more they could do for her? Then the screams that I didn't realize were mine in the hallway of the Nicu. Scenes I play over and over in my mind...I can't erase them.

Tears that stain my cheek as these memories are typed out. I feel at times they might as well be a permanent fixture on my face....a stain that no matter how much you scrub or soak it still it remains. I talk a lot about my good days...today is a off day...a day that I don't care about the tears that either run or just sit comfortably in the rim of my eye lids...I am emotional and I'm not gonna say sorry for it today. I miss my daughter and long for her toes and cheeks to kiss. To read silly books to and see bright eyes staring back at me. I miss my life as a "mother".