WHERE ARE YOU??

I miss you Christina and I suppose I am beginning - just beginning - to realize that I will never see you again and that as we all age, you will forever remain twenty-three.

It's been nearly four months - which feels like both a short time and a really, really long time - and still, I mourn losing you like this. Sometimes, I must remind myself: You aren't at CCDOC (because that is what your absence reminds me of); I must actually remind myself that you're not just "not here," you are no longer alive; we laid you to rest. Physically, I was there; but mentally I was gone. I functioned on automatic pilot that first week. I remember your funeral as if it were a bad dream. Perhaps that accounts for the trouble I am having accepting your death: I was not fully present from that moment we found you. And so is it any surprise that I find myself wondering where you are?

I found your journals today and started reading them. The two I read today were from ten years ago. As I read it, I thought, "She seems like she was just a normal adolescent." I didn't read anything that surprised me, although I read a lot of things I didn't know about. And I noticed, for the first time, that your penmanship is a lot like your dad's. In fact, at first I thought he had actually written in your journal, until I realized it was in fact your handwriting.

Yesterday we had guests here and one of the women mentioned liking shoes - especially boots. I showed her some of your collection and wondered if Ada will like them when she's older; there's no way I can part with them because I know how much you liked your shoe collection. Your daughter will inherit them. I wonder what she will think of them.

I've learned a lot since you've been gone, Christina, about things I didn't ever think I'd have to know. I've learned that grieving for someone who took their own life is more difficult than losing someone to natural causes; it's traumatic. I've learned that the grieving process can take a long, long time - several years - when a parent loses one of their own the way I lost you. And I learned that the pain will never go away; I will simply have to learn to live my life in spite of the pain. I believe you took part of me with you That Morning and that I will remain forever changed.