Coping my way through

Out of habit, I'm a strong person. Like, strong enough that I'm able to hold my shit together during some of the most difficult times.

Except with death. I tend to go all in when it comes to death - cleaning, working, once (singular, one time) it was drinking ... and rarely since then have I mixed my white wines with my reds when consuming entire bottles on my own.

On Tuesday, I scrubbed the kitchen floor and did laundry and tried any way I could to not let my mind be idle because, as I said to one friend, and idle mind is the Devil's playground. I knew if I sat still long enough, the what ifs and what did I do wrongs would sneak in. The last thing the girls need from me right now is for depression to take hold. I can't let depression win in this because I've already lost enough, I'm already coping with enough. I don't need to forget how to get up in the morning or put on jeans or smile. I've still been able to smile through the pain because I was given the opportunity to carry this baby for however long I was supposed to. I can feel blessed knowing I served that purpose.

When I was 12, my grandma passed away, my dad's mom. I spent the evening calling hours cleaning whatever I could find at my grandparent's home - a home my grandfather built - and learned then that cleaning was one of those coping things I do. So was eating. I did that really well and the sugar fueled the spit shining I did on the basement stairs. I coped.

When Nana was sick and passed away in 2006, I didn't clean ... but I threw myself so hard into my graduate work that I essentially forgot to eat. I started freelancing for the paper and was hired on full time and my entire life revolved around the paper and finishing my thesis. It's how I coped.

There have been hard times my family has suffered, together and alone, and I've held my shit together like a fucking rock star because I was able to employ those methods.

This isn't one of those times. I tried the cleaning, and now the house looks like I haven't picked up in weeks (it's really only been since Sunday) and I don't have a job to throw myself into. Today I opened the file with the novel I'm writing and almost had a panic attack because I thought I was missing a thousand words. It was most like 400, and they're in a separate file. I couldn't focus on the work.

This time, I'll let myself cry. I'll let myself cry a thousand times a day if it means I feel a little better, a little closer to closure, when the tears dry.

I make sure to take my time in the shower in the morning because I know at least once from the time I step into the tub until I turn the water off, I will fall apart and sob as quietly as I can so the girls don't hear and worry.

Every time I start to cry and Josie's around, she asks me if I'm still sad. I'm trying not to be sad in front of the girls or Ron, but it's difficult because rarely do I have time to myself. If one of them isn't in the same room as me, it's the dog. Bailey has been so underfoot it's difficult to explain it away as just her normal behavior. I know it's not. So not only do my 3- and 4-year-old worry about me, the dog does too and sometimes it's worse than the girls worrying.

I got a phone call yesterday from Edible Arrangements letting me know they had a package for me and I got really angry. It's not that I didn't appreciate the thought or understand this was how Ron's dad was coping with what we are going through, it isn't that at all. But as I sat in my minivan with Charlotte strapped into her seat and I listened to the message all I could think was, "Fruit won't fix this hurt. I don't want a fucking fruit basket, I want my baby."

I know ... I sound like an asshole. The devastation was just starting to mix with the anger and I needed something to be mad about. So I got mad. I think anyone who's been in this place will understand.

Then, I wiped my tears, drove back home in the snow storm we had yesterday, got mad because I passed two plows that weren't plowing the roads, dropped the groceries in the kitchen and went to pick Josie up from school. When it came time for dinner, I was grateful for the gift because it's the only thing either Josie or Charlie really would eat. It was also part of breakfast. Thank you for providing for our family.

When I got home, there was a package waiting for me by the front door from Amazon and I waited until I wasn't in a rush to open it, thinking it was possibly from the Christmas Exchange my book club is doing. It was a gift from my friend Emiley with a card - the Willow Tree "Guardian" figure - and it was what I needed in that moment. I'll find the perfect spot for it and it will sit with the other Willow Tree figures I've gotten Ron over the years to signify our children and our growing family, because even though this baby won't come home to sleep in a crib or nurse in the middle of the night or drive me crazy through the toddler-to-teen years ... this is one of my children. Thank you, Em, for giving me this gift. I will forever and ever treasure it. <3

Dinner tomorrow night is taken care of because we have people who love us enough to make sure we're fed, and that alone is something I hadn't thought about until Liz mentioned ordering food for us. A friendship that's lasted more than a decade where we hardly see one another since graduating from college, but when we do talk it's like no time has passed at all, and she fills my heart with so much happy thinking of something as simple as dinner. Thank you, Liz and Tony, for making sure we eat tomorrow. Without you, I'm sure Ron would just feed the girls peanut butter and jelly (not that there's anything wrong with that).

The hospital called to do my registration for tomorrow and when she got to the question about my last period, I responded "September 6" and she said, "Are you pregnant?" No. I guess not? How was I supposed to respond to that? Not with a baby, anyway, but with fear and loathing and hate and hurt and anger and more fear. Yes. I'm pregnant with all of that. "I'm coming in for a D&C," I responded and then I heard the quick intake of breath and the whispered "I'm sorry."  It was hard to hold it together through the end of the call. I coped right into the sleeve of my hoodie as soon as I hung up the phone.

I'm still trying to process it all, I'm trying to convince my body this pregnancy isn't happening, that this baby needs to be let go of. It isn't listening and tomorrow when I go to the hospital, I only pray I can keep it together long enough to get through the day, get through the conversations with nurses and my obstetrician, and come home to my girls.

I wish I could fast forward time.

I wish I could simply pray away the pain.