No Words to Describe the Way I Feel
Sunday, January 17, 2016
I want to thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and messages of condolence. I open them up and read them whenever I can. Mostly they make me face the reality of what has happened, which is a very hard thing for me to do right now. These past few weeks have been deeply personal for me and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the space, privacy, and support you’ve all given me. My family is here with me in Nepal as we attempt to navigate this. The children are doing okay. They are strong and resilient. I love and appreciate them more than I ever have. They are such good kids, such amazingly strong, huge hearted, brave, generous, and loving brothers and sisters. I think they’re mostly worried about me and I’m doing a pretty miserable job at trying to be strong and there for them. Sometimes they tip-toe warily into my room to see how I’m doing, not totally sure of what state they’ll find me in. Some of them sleep with me in my room and don’t want to leave, and some of them avoid me all together. We celebrated Jhagat, Karma and Pankha’s birthdays this month. Jhagat was turning six and he was one of the ones who didn’t want to come anywhere near me. He looked at me with this terrified look and it didn’t matter how many times I invited him to come and sit near me, he wouldn’t come. I didn’t want him to remember his 6th birthday as the time that Ravi died so I sent someone out to find him a remote control helicopter and a bag of goodies with the hopes that he’d come near me to open his present. It worked and he opened his gift with the biggest smile on his face. "It's really for me?" he asked. "Yes, it's for YOU!" Then Kesav went and found batteries and we tried to fly the helicopter around my room and then he went off to the side yard to play with it some more and I haven't really seen him since.
I don’t really have any words to describe the way I feel. This is horribly awful. This is absolute hell. If my life was a book or a movie, this is the point that I would normally stop reading, stop watching, turn off the tv or change the channel. It's just way too depressing. But this is actually real. This is actually my life and somehow I’m still here and I’m supposed to keep going and living this through.
I always thought I’d die if something happened to one of my children. In fact, I used to tell my kids that now and again, when I was urging them to be safe and make good decisions. “I would die if something happened to you,” I’d say. Those words are now ringing in my ears. Here I am, somehow still breathing, hour by hour, day by day trying to make it to the next moment, through another morning and then another afternoon and then another night through the deepest darkest grief and despair.
My days have gone from being packed with the tasks of caring for my children and my baby and my work, to trying desperately hard to crawl out of bed and make it to the bathroom, eat and drink water, or if i’m being really brave, open the curtain to look out the window, or try to leave my room.
I’m scared and shaky. I feel like someone’s sitting on my chest and I can't catch my breath. I still feel like this is a long extended nightmare that I can’t wake up from. It feels too bad to be true. The worst thing of all is that I’m not even sure what I believe in anymore or who I am. This has shaken my faith and what I thought about the world and what I held sacred and true. I believed in hard work paying off, and everything happening for a reason and happy endings. I believed my children were safe and protected. I’ve had a lot of hard things happen these past ten years, a lot of really hard things. Death isn’t new to me. Tragedy and let down and disappointment are almost normal here. But I always held on. Through it all, I held on with hope and optimism and an undying faith. I had my worries, my hardships, and my sleepless nights but I fought and I kept fighting and I urged everyone around me to fight too. But this is just too much. My hands are in the air. I surrender. This is absolute torture. This will never ever in a million years make sense to me.
I’d like to think I can take Ravi’s heart, his laughter and his spirit and carry it with mine somehow. I’d like to think I’ll laugh again some day. I’d like to think I can love another human being the way I loved him. But the pain is too much right now. The thought of him not coming back shoots and radiates the most unbearable pain all through my body. I miss him so much it aches and the only time I feel okay is when I can pretend he’s still here. My perfect little baby, my joy. I know I won’t ever be the same person I was. I used to stop in my tracks at the sight of a baby. I could always make them smile and now I can’t even look or hear them cry. My face is washed in tears. The pain subsides for a few minutes each day until it’s back in a flash with a memory, with his empty crib, my empty arms, the pile of diapers sitting on the shelf, his toys clothes and toys still scattered around my room, and his little baby sneakers outside my door. You know what I just realized this morning?
I won’t get to see him grow up. And I can wish all the wishes in the world and he'll never come back.
That is just about the saddest thing ever.