The awfulness that happened on Friday.. it just won't go away for me. It's just a nightmare.. a total unreal nightmare. And I feel awful for even feeling things like that- because I didn't lose a child on Friday (thank God and whoever else). I don't personally know anyone that did. I don't even live in Connecticut. And yet..
The more I read (and I can't seem to stop myself) the more horrid, gruesome details I learn. And the more sick, absolutely sick I feel. It just seems to be a never ending tale of the worst things I can imagine happening, without these things actually happening to me.
At first I thought.. well at least X. Then no, no.. that wasn't the case. And I felt worse. Then I was thinking well, at least Y.. Y at least, right? Because Y has to be true.. because, it just does. And then I read articles about "new gruesome details" (because I wasn't devastated enough already apparently).. and felt worse and worse and worse. Because Y wasn't true. At all. The actual total opposite in fact.
(If you haven't been reading the gruesome details, don't. As bad as you can imagine it- it's actually worse. And probably will just keep getting worse and worse as I cannot stop myself from knowing. I wish I could scrub my mind out.)
I have been sick since Friday. Physically sick to my stomach. For days. Part of me just wants to cry, thinking it will make the sickness go, but.. I doubt it will.
I read about so many people planning to wear the elementary school's colors (green and white) on Monday. What is that going to do? I don't know. But we did it, the 3 of us. Because when one feels so unbelievably helpless, when the tiniest shred of anything comes by.. you grab it.
Unfortunately, we are probably the least green wardrobed people on the planet. Lily agreed to wear the green pants she has refused to wear for the last month (I couldn't believe it honestly) and a dress over them that was mostly white. Noah had little specks here and there on his clothes, but he did have a green blanket. All I had was heavy winter jacket and a striped (with white) scarf.. in the rain. I added some green and white yarn to the zipper pull.. and we were off for the day.
To where? Oh.. nowhere special.. just dropping Lily off.. AT SCHOOL.
I didn't really want to think about it. Just went through the motions of everything this morning while we were getting ready. Lily said her usual, casual goodbye to Jason and we started out the door, then..
She runs back down the hall towards him and tells him "goodbye", "I'm going to miss you!", etc etc. Hugs! Kisses! Sadness. Oh God child.
We head down the stairs.. and she starts telling me how much she's going to miss me. Something about writing her a letter and leaving it in the mailbox. Sadness. Emphasizing the MISSING me. I finally had to stop her.. asked her to stop being so sappy (which I'm sure she didn't understand). Because, in my head.. I knew I was on the verge of falling apart.. with the way she was acting.. like.. we're not going to see each other again. All I was doing was taking her to school, it's not like.. oh, wait. Exactly.
Going from the car to the school, I gripped her hand tight, and closed my eyes for a moment. "Get it together, you cannot cry dropping this child off at school," I told myself. And I did. Until Noah and I left the school without her, and I was just thinking about how all I wanted was for her to be returned to us safely. Ug.
And there was no way I thought about her at school.. while she was.. you know, actually AT school. Because I would have chewed all my fingernails down to nothing.
When Noah and I picked Lily up from school.. I could hear her before I saw her. I put Noah's carrier down on the floor and crouched down to Lily-level, because as she popped around the corner towards me, running, her face..
..God. Looked just like the faces coming out of the elementary school. She'd been crying, she still was crying, she was desperate, SO upset. She ran straight into my arms and I held her tight. She kept crying. I almost lost it too. With the shakiest voice I've ever heard come out of my body, I asked her what happened.
And.. it was not anything that was the end of the world. I honestly cannot even remember what she said.. I was just holding onto her.
Because I could. Because we still have that ability. We are both still here. But how those parents, walking out of that firehouse.. without their children, had the ability to put one foot in front of the other? I don't know. They would have had to carry me out.
I do not ever want to know how they could. I do not ever want to understand a parent's ability to get through something like that. I just don't want to know if I have that strength or not. No one does.
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