The month has crept up on me. The days are getting closer. The moments leading up to the anniversary of her initial disappearance takes the breath out of my chest and I find it harder and harder to breathe. Inside, I know what happened to her, I know where she is… my head is IN the game. It is just the “anniversary” that always tries to relive different scenarios. You know, like in movies you love, that you have seen a million times. Even though you know what is going to happen next, “Don’t open the black book,” “Jack, find a better flotation device” or “Don’t watch the stupid DVD!” no matter how much we plead, we beg, we are helpless to watch the events unfold in front of us the same way they did the last time we saw it.
I miss her every day.
There is not a day that I get up and don’t think about her. Thoughts of her are not consuming, but they are there never-the-less. Today for example, just a song triggered my sadness. I was turning the corner to my street at lunch and one of her songs came on the radio that were played at her funeral. I instantly was kicked in the stomach. I pulled up to the hill in front of my house and was just mortified because she died right over that hill. I walked up the steps and before I could get to the top, the warmth of my tears drenched down my face. I realized that I am reminded of her daily because she is everywhere in my life. I looked at the plant sitting on my porch and the Wandering Jew that she picked out for our landscape caught my eye. It humbly touches the ground it is so long. As I approach the front of the door, I see the wooden “hope” that is affixed from it. I told myself, that “hope” is only there because of her. A boy made it for me the week after she was gone. As I walked into the house and passed the word “hope” which gave so many people comfort in that amazingly difficult time. I noticed that I was immediately OK. Like I was given a supernatural hug. It was the same feeling as someone giving you a hug and you have that “relieved” feeling. That is something I have never been able to give to myself… I will let you make your own assumptions.
I want to do something for her. I will get there. I am not quite there yet. I need to work on me still. I just hope that those that are in our lives are not discouraged by that with the thought that I am dragging this grief thing out. I am not, it is just my process.
There is no one in my life that has left that I have ever missed more. I was driving home from work today and thinking, God I can’t wait to get to heaven so that I can see my girl. I immediately was given two thoughts. One was mine, I know I want to be here on earth for my kids and my husband and friends. I know that I am here for a reason, and I need to fulfill my created purpose. I am good with that. I was given another thought and it wasn’t from me. It was comforting and it set me back in the correct direction: “Your focus should not be on the dead in which you know where they are. I should be your only focus, when I am your focus, you are strong, not held back, not held down.” “Free”. This seems potentially harsh and maybe jealous and insensitive. But if you knew the conversations that I have had with God lately, you would see this was a blessing. I have been working on developing the rest of my life. The direction anyway. I love my girl, but I want to LIVE. I want my kids to LIVE. I want to see what else is out there for me to uncover, discover, help, heal, or just be more than this grief. It is not really grief any more. It is more a longing, but not more longing than that I do for Jesus.
Life After Her 
Where to start.
My heart breaks every time I hear Dakota’s name.
I can not imagine the maelstrom of images, thoughts and feelings surrounding her Heaven date, the event and the aftermath.
When Liz was 13, I discovered she was a cutter. Her legs were scarred and lined from repeated scorings.
She wore long pants and sleeves to hide the evidence, but I knew immediately what the problem was.
The solution, however eluded me.
I was in my own hell. Tim had always worked long hours, but suddenly came home for dinner one night.
At 5.
‘Where’s dinner?’ He asked.
‘After soccer and swim.’ I told him and headed out to retrieve the sports fans.
Apparently his latest fling was a work cohort, so staying til 10 or later was now uncomfortable for him.
After a week or so of coming home early, he realized that at some point in the last 8 years our schedule changed.
He began staying for the ‘later’ class of Tae Kwon Do and resumed his late hours.
The cutter.
I hit the Internet and looked up cutting. I searched the library. I asked my therapist for answers, never mind the questions of “why? What is going on with her that’s so painful?’
The answers for cutting were all the same. It’s a cry for attention. Not necessarily from me, but from somebody. A boy? Her family? Cousins? Other girls who had excluded her because of her pink hair, skull t shirts and jewelry?
Would she, one day, make the final cut? The answer was a unanimous ‘no.’
Relieved, I asked for help. What do I do, don’t do. How can I change the equations that added up to 3 am sessions with a razor blade?
When I was 15, I planned my suicide. I wanted the person who was hurting me most to find me. I wanted to be sure her black heart ached for every day she continued to breathe. I planned to save her a seat in hell, so the fury and hate could continue for eternity, but the tables would be turned. She would be the receiver.
An accidentally overhear discussion changed my life, my attitude and my relationship with her.
She was living fighting her own demons. Demons who didn’t exist, who had never existed. I was easy prey for her anger.
The next day, I took a different approach. No resistance, no reaction.
No further interaction. It worked. Within weeks a new target was found. The bully moved on.
The cutter.
Since I was not the target, the tormentor or the confidante. I took on the role of nurturing her friends and fostering two of them . Maybe her demons were outside. She’d always had a heart for the underdog, the unwanted, the expendable.
When Mikaela moved in with us. The dynamics changed. We were all damaged goods, but could pull together.
A bi-polar, a cutter and a deeply depressed.
A ring of three that could withstand the turmoil of menopause, a failed marriage, mean girls, unwanted sex and a bathroom wall dedicated to my daughter and her alleged exploits.
Years passed. We got through a cocaine addiction, alcoholism, manic- depressive syndrome, a divorce and a few moves.
It was a lonnnnggggg road. We are better now and have passed many dangerous side roads, gone down more than a few and continue our lives.
When I heard about Dakota, I went outside and threw up.
I left the office and drove around for a long time, reliving all those horrible years of fear. I hid from you and could not go to the funeral. I could not be there for someone else, when my life , my child, my foster, still struggled with real and imagined dangers.
I am so sorry for everything your family has gone through and amazed, relieved and joyful that you have overcome and have faced this with the help of God, the circle of well wishers and helpers.
Yeah I can imagine that it must have been very hard and hit too close to home. I think that I would have avoided that person that lost their daughter too. I would not want to be close to them for fear that somehow being in the same room could touch my family. (There were a few people in my life that haunted me when I went to their children’s funerals, and you are correct, I wished them well and prayed for them even maybe, but I did not reach out and maybe even stayed a good distance apart.)
I get it, I do and I value you and your friendship. Thanks for not staying away for too long. There were those at the funeral (I detest funerals by the way and typically find one person I can go and hide out with somewhere) that would come and find me, and felt that they had to say something, that they had to share something with me that they were going through or that they knew a person of a person that had this happen to them, honestly I don’t know what they wanted me to do. I think that their initial intentions were good. I am certain they wanted to let me know that I was not alone, or that others around me could relate. Unless it is YOUR KID, I am sorry, but you cannot relate. It is everyone’s own version of hell. Each relationship has a different perspective.
When you baby sit someone, you are in that child’s life for a portion of their day for a smaller fraction of their life, even though it seems like they were so much a part of your day… You never dealt with their sicknesses and illnesses, especially if you had other children in the house. You didn’t see the events in their lives that have shaped their personalities. You don’t know all the stories or even half of the secrets. I am sorry, that you are feeling your own loss, but you do not know how I feel, I am her mother. (This is what I wanted to tell people with their thoughtful understanding comments.)
Honestly, at the funeral I was still in shock and I had to put aside my grieving because there were hurting people there, at my daughter’s expense. Suicides are different grieving processes. When my dad died, he was in poor health and had a surgery that he was recovering from and I think that a blood clot or another heart attack is what happened. He didn’t choose this. (Well, he chose bad eating etc. but you know what I mean). She CHOSE. She put everyone in that room by her actions. Who is responsible for her? I am. I am her mother.
When she was a little girl and she had broken someone else’s window, it was my responsibility to fix it. When she told the teacher that she would bring in cookies for the class party, it was me that had to have her back. When she stole something from someone, it was on me to make her make it right with the person that she wronged… can you imagine my mother’s instinct when you are running off of adrenaline, no sleep and in continuous shock? Not to mention I had not yet cried. I was putting it off. People that I love were coming up to me ready to cry with me, and I told them stop it, I am not there yet. The funeral experience was a hot mess, as you can imagine. But for so many more reasons than you will know. There were some dramatic moments: my mom and JB’s sister exchanged words. My mom confronted Dakota’s dad. I was in the same room with a man that well; I won’t get into those details. I was warm to Dakota’s boyfriend. I could write a blog on that. My aunt ripped a photo in half of a detestable person that my daughter loathed while on earth. Ex-girlfriend of my brother came up incognito for fear that my brother would see her, I had to sneak her out. And to top it all off, my sons were playing hide and go seek in the funeral home. I had to remind them there are dead bodies…. See all the fun you missed.
What you did after means more than any presence in chaos.
Thank you for your story and thank you for your friendship. I do hope you know you are a jewel in my crown I feel so fortunate to have. I think a part of the gifts we will put at the feet of Jesus are the good discoveries of the amazing people we found and kept in our lives.