Brutal nightmares

 

I just Woke with one of those nightmares that you wake up and it feels real. The kind that chills to your bones and there is nothing you can do. I was curled up in a ball.  I had written about Bella and missing her and being so sad and my mother Was reading it, but she wasn't on my side caring or anything. Like she was there but no emotion. Then my father came in and I could hear her telling him and I curled up in a ball even tighter, he was carrying on as usual, making things about him. He said Sherri is this true, Were you pregnant? I winced, I shook my head and said yes. He went crazy, I was left alone, no acknowledgement, and then they disappear. I wonder if he worried that she was his? That has crossed my mind too.  Then somehow, I am much older. And there are these like bag of stones almost and they tell you who passed before you, and the other person saw mine and put it to the side, I noticed it a little later and just kept saying see I wasn't lying, I wasn't lying. I had Bella and she was mine. I kept repeating her name over and over and over again, and I woke up saying her name and feeling like that girl curled up in a ball feeling so alone. It was like it was Bella and I against the world. 

I hate the nightmares like this that feel so real that keep going even after you wake up. I just wish there were answers. I wish some of this did make sense. Its soooooooo sad. Even if someone said anything would things have been different, I don't know.  

Today, she would be 35 years old.  

I am just sitting here, and my heart is achy.  It seems so far away and yet so close.  I wish that I had an understanding of that time 35 years ago.  Who knew, what did they do.  As nice as that Dr was, as grateful as I was for his kind touch.  Why didn't he do anything.  I can still hear his voice in my head and, so clearly, I hear his words I am sorry you have lost her.  He said her, would I have even known she was a girl if not for that DR. Why even then did no one step up to help me.  I was left alone in my grief, wanting to die.  They had to have done a sonogram, an exam, I mean they would have noticed something right?  Because I know that I wouldn't have been ok being touched.  There is a part of me that is more than grateful that I don't remember some of these details.  And then at the same time, I wish that I had more pieces of the puzzle.  I was 13 years old, maybe 14 when I lost her. There was no way for me to understand anything that was happening.  There was no way to even comprehend, what had happened, her being gone and how to keep living life.  No wonder i wanted to die that Summer in Florida. OH, my heart. Not a single person, did anything.  There was no way for me to begin to even process all that had happened to me that year.  According to Joan that didn't happen anyway. Just so very sad.  I cannot process this at almost 48!   Yet at 13, nothing was ever spoken of. I would have missed a few days of school, right?  How in the world do I go back to middle school, after losing a child? I wasn't like them before and didn't fit in, there is no way I would have fit in now.  How does this happen. Everything in my life up to that point built me to just keep moving.  Just pretend that everything is ok and all is well with the world. I am sitting here and literally cannot comprehend that little girl's life.  This is truly heartbreaking.  She has no memento, no blanket, not an ever so tiny footprint.  All we have is that whale necklace that we got that Summer, a mother whale and her baby.  That is what we have.  

Oh 13-year-old Callahan there are not enough sorry's in the world for having had to do this on your own.  I am so so so sorry for all that you went through.

 I heart your heart.