This picture was taken in mid March, 2010, on the pier near our old home in Panama City Beach, FL. It never dawned on me until the other day just how prophetic this turned out to be. It was the last time we saw Brittany before her accident, and it was the last photo taken with her little brother, Bryson...walking away. Heartbreaking, isn't it? Who knew that less than 4 months later this picture would end up symbolizing the unimaginable?Brittany walking out of my life, my husband's life, and the life of her precious little brother. It brings me both tears and smiles. Tears, because I don't want it to be true. Smiles, because this is how Bryson remembers Brittany...walking beside him...hand in hand. And that's how he's still holding on to her today...
~
Just when I think I've come so far, I open my eyes one morning only to be sucker punched in the gut, having any semblance of progress I've made knocked right out of me. And once again, I can't breathe. Once again, I'm lost and confused. And I didn't realize just how far I'd slipped back into the darkness until I went to visit Brittany a week and a half ago.
It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The temperature was unseasonably warm, the skies were blue and the sun was bright. It was one of those perfect Winter days that makes you beg for an early Spring. Perhaps it would have been like that for me, too...if I hadn't been heading to a place no mother should ever have to go. That wretched word I hate saying...cemetery. I hardly remember my 90 minute drive to Effingham that day. I must have been in a haze. Then again, I suppose after the hundreds upon hundreds of trips I've made there over the past nearly 19 months, my car can find its own way without any guidance from me.
The closer I got to Arborcrest, the more anxious and disoriented I became. Why was I there? It felt wrong and foreign. I didn't belong there. Anywhere but there. I was an intruder...a stranger. It was almost as if I was standing from afar watching this brokenhearted mother kneel beside this beautiful girl. Her precious daughter, with eyes as bright and blue as the afternoon's sky. Who was this woman that sobbed inconsolably as she collapsed by the girl's picture, cradling it in her arms and kissing its beautiful face, repeatedly whispering, "I love you! I miss you!" Why was this scene so familiar to me? And then, I remembered. The pain and sorrow...the emptiness and heartache...the inability to think and breathe. It all came flooding back, consuming me in its wake, suffocating me in its darkness. It was me. Of course it was me. As much as I wish it hadn't been...it was me.
...and it still is.
I miss you Brittany <3
It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The temperature was unseasonably warm, the skies were blue and the sun was bright. It was one of those perfect Winter days that makes you beg for an early Spring. Perhaps it would have been like that for me, too...if I hadn't been heading to a place no mother should ever have to go. That wretched word I hate saying...cemetery. I hardly remember my 90 minute drive to Effingham that day. I must have been in a haze. Then again, I suppose after the hundreds upon hundreds of trips I've made there over the past nearly 19 months, my car can find its own way without any guidance from me.
The closer I got to Arborcrest, the more anxious and disoriented I became. Why was I there? It felt wrong and foreign. I didn't belong there. Anywhere but there. I was an intruder...a stranger. It was almost as if I was standing from afar watching this brokenhearted mother kneel beside this beautiful girl. Her precious daughter, with eyes as bright and blue as the afternoon's sky. Who was this woman that sobbed inconsolably as she collapsed by the girl's picture, cradling it in her arms and kissing its beautiful face, repeatedly whispering, "I love you! I miss you!" Why was this scene so familiar to me? And then, I remembered. The pain and sorrow...the emptiness and heartache...the inability to think and breathe. It all came flooding back, consuming me in its wake, suffocating me in its darkness. It was me. Of course it was me. As much as I wish it hadn't been...it was me.
...and it still is.
I miss you Brittany <3
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