Posts from March 2017

It has been one thousand days since our daughter took her last breath.

I don’t know if it’s a cruel irony or a fortunate happenstance that this coincides with an upward adjustment in my antidepression medication.  It was necessary, because I was losing the will to do anything but the bare necessary minimum to function.  Now I can actually initiate conversation, and see life as something other than a state to be passively endured.  But the surge in serotonin reuptake inhibitors has also distanced me from grief.

I can feel, distantly, the despair that accompanies this milestone and its root cause.  I can feel, distantly, the instinct that I should bring that despair closer, to mourn a little more and honor Rebecca’s memory. It stays on the horizon of my awareness, something to be noticed when my gaze happens to turn that direction.  Not more.

I can feel, distantly, the conviction that this is abnormal and should be unacceptable.  Maybe that’s true.  Maybe it isn’t.

Instead I remember the face of my daughter, and the aura of a smile suffuses my heart.

I still miss her.  I still, from time to time, wonder how I managed to get this far in the wake of so shattering a loss.  I honestly didn’t think I’d have the strength.  Maybe I was born with it.  Maybe it’s paroxetine.

I don’t know how I’ll feel toward the end of the month, when I reach 2¹⁰ days, and I guess in some ways it doesn’t matter.  The day will come, the day will go, and it will be whatever it is.

Very much like a life.

• One Thousand Days was published on Friday, March 3rd, 2017.
• It was assigned to the Personal and Rebecca categories.
• There have been fourteen replies.