A Holiday to Remind Us

I’ve been trying to post on Wednesdays, but obviously I missed that deadline this week! Memorial Day weekend has thrown me off in more ways than one.

My family and I decided to take a break for the weekend and get out of town for a little while. We went to visit my aunt who lives in a big house with a big pool out in the middle of nowhere.

My view from the weekend featuring my favorite pup, Midnight!

It was perfect.

It was quiet and peaceful. It was so stinking hot that the pool felt amazing. We ate so much delicious food I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to eat again for at least a month.  My Cousins and their kids came over. My dog was there (she even went swimming with us!) My best friend, my brother, my parents, my grandma were all there.

So why was I miserable the whole time?

Sure it was easy to pretend like I wasn’t, everything was great and I did have a good time (not to mention I’m used to pretending like I’m okay), but something was just off.

Of course it was because Kody and Athena weren’t there.

Athena’s death is more recent than Kody’s, so it hurt more that she wasn’t there. I’ve survived Christmas, New Year, and my birthday without Kody. I’m used to looking for him in the crowded room only to be reminded that he’ll never be there again. I’m used to preparing myself for the hurt that follows with realizing everyone else get’s to be happy with their significant other, while I get to be missing mine.

But this was the first gathering without Athena. I was not prepared for the hurt and the pain of seeing other kids getting to be happy and healthy, swimming with my (her) dog, jumping on the trampoline, running through the house, and curling up to watch a movie at the end of the day. I was not prepared for the feeling of changing into my swimsuit and going to get her ready for the pool, only to be reminded, violently, that she wasn’t there. I was not prepared for getting up to get food and only having to make a plate for me.

I wasn’t prepared at all.

I went through all of this with Kody too, but Kody was an adult. He could do things without me. What I miss most about him now is not being able to come and talk to him at the end of the day. I miss the future we were going to have. I miss his smile, the way he walked, the way he took his gaming headphones off when I walked into the room.

Athena, though, was basically my child. I was raising her. When I did something for myself, I usually had to do it for her too. The emptiness in my routine is what hurts the most right now. Not having to set my alarm an hour early so I can get up and get ready before getting her up to get ready. Pulling into a parking lot and not having to turn around to unbuckle her. Not having to make chocolate milk every night, or watch her never-ending series of dances. Not reading her a bedtime story and tucking her in.

Not having to pack a bag with the swimsuit that she picked out, and changing her into it, and chasing after her with the sunscreen, and helping her swim when she was scared.

Those things are still new and raw. Writing this and thinking about it is still giving me a lump in my throat and making me tear up.

I miss Kody every day, and my grief for him is not outweighed or eclipsed by my grief for Athena, but Athena’s is much more raw than Kody’s at this moment. It hasn’t even been a month yet, after all.   They are different kinds of pain. Both are pains of a lost future and a lost loved one, but the pain of losing my husband and the pain of losing my child are two very different feelings.

Sadly, my heart and body just hurt all over and in different ways now.

Kody holding Athena for the first time after he moved in with us. We were 18, she was about 4 months.