Madame President

We were watching the season 4 premiere of The Diplomat, a Netflix political drama / thriller starring Keri Russell as a diplomat thrust into one international crisis after another. It’s fine, nothing spectacular, but entertaining. Slight spoilers follow.

The new episode features Allison Janney taking over the presidency after the death of the president, played by Michael McKean. While it was great seeing C.J. succeed Lenny like that, along with Felicity trying to navigate the new power dynamic created, it suddenly made me realize something that caused some emotional pain:

Adrianna will never get to see a woman elected President of the United States.

This realization may seem like nothing, but it broke me a bit. Adrianna wasn’t exactly political, but she was very empathetic and always on the side of those who might be forgotten, those without power, and in the politics of today that meant she only had a home in one particular political party. She didn’t rant and rave like I did/do, but all of the associated causes and worries and fears and triumphs and goals associated with that political ideology still were forefront for her.

And she was a woman full stop. A strong woman with fragile physical issues, but her determination and will and vision were a force to be reckoned with. We’d discussed the idea that a woman will one day finally be elected president, and the notion excited her, because such ideas and events should transcend politics, much in the manner that electing Obama, for a brief moment at least, helped raise up the entire nation. Even my father, an life-long strong conservative admitted to me after Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 that he felt a twinge of pride that we as a nation had elected a black man.

Of course that was short-lived, but for a moment in time…

Girls and women need such a moment, and I assume (hope?) it will come one day. Not as some token choice of a woman so we can finally mark that off our scorecard, but because she also just happened to be the best candidate. Hilary Clinton in 2016 was clearly that candidate; her gender was just a secondary added bonus for those of us who want to break that last glass ceiling, and I know Adri planned on voting for her.

But she will never live to see this happen. Her lifetime consisted of one where a girl could hope and dream to be president one day, but those hopes and dreams are not 270 electoral votes (though, of course, they can be a plurality of the popular vote.) I was crushed to realize that I live in a country that could not muster the support for the two women who ran against the current president, but could when a man ran against him. I hope that’s a coincidence.

And if I was crushed, I imagine the utter disappointment and despair felt by a large portion of the US women must have been of magnitudes greater.

Including Adrianna.

Moreover, this sudden realization during the viewing of a Netflix series was just a harsh reminder of all the things that Adri will miss and never see. There are little things, like never getting to ride in the new car we just got; consequential things, like seeing a woman elected president of this nation; and, of course, all-encompassing huge things, like seeing her sons graduate, get married, have children, and just make their places in life.

Me breaking down in tears because she won’t see a female president might have seemed a bit over-sensitive on my part, but it was just a harsh reminder of both where we are as a country and all the things she will miss because of a life cut short.

It just broke me a bit. Part fifty-six.

Memory Tree

 

Adri joins Aunt Elaine's memory tree

My Aunt Elaine has a memory tree (don't know what it's actually called, but that's what I'm calling it) of all the people she's lost. Her daughter, husband, two grandchildren,  my grandparents (her sister) and my great grand parents (her parents) are there, and now so is Adri, right at the end. 

It's wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time.

The Butterfly Effect and Detroit: Becoming Human

Credit: Quantic Dream - Quantic Dream

One of the ways I can get out of my brain is by playing a video game. The complete immersion afforded by a well-written and executed game works wonders, providing a break from the occasional dour, defeatist, or depressing thoughts that still arise daily. You surrender to the plot and become one with the game controller. Solve a puzzle or two, slay a zombie, sit through multiple cut scenes, and just like that two hours have gone by, which can be a good thing.

My most recent game experience has been Detroit: Become Human which I just finished yesterday. This game was originally released in 2018, and a few years later was available as one of the monthly included games that you can download for free if you’re a PlayStation Network subscriber. I get 99% of my games that way because I’m a cheapskate…. I mean, frugal.

It’s an adventure game that takes place in the near future where androids are ubiquitous, but often abused and treated as second-class citizens. There are three story lines that follow three different androids as they try to achieve some sort of freedom and recognition in order to live their lives with rights equal to humans.

The key hook of this game is that in each story line you are constantly confronted with choices to make. These may be dialogue choices, action choices, or plot-direction decisions, and each one of these choices creates a butterfly effect, a branching off of story and plot and outcome that you can view represented as a sort of flowchart showing the choices you made. And like the butterfly effect, these branches and bifurcations lead to a myriad of potential outcomes and plotlines that depend on the different ways you have chosen to proceed along the way.

Many games incorporate aspects of this idea where you are allowed multiple choices in different situations, but I’ve never played one that did it this well or fully. Usually, for example, you may meet a character who has something you need, let’s say a bag of corn, and you are given two choices such as:

“Steal the bag of corn” or “Attempt to barter for the bag of corn.”

Usually it makes no difference to the grand arch of the storyline, and worse, often it’s not really a free choice at all. You may opt to steal the corn, but then they fight you and won’t let you steal it, and then asks you if you want to barter for it. So… why did the game developer even bother with the pseudo-choice when there’s really only one outcome?

Here, the choices are a bit more consequential, with more than just two alternatives, and they’re not just dialogue choices. They’re often choices such as “do nothing,” “grab the crow bar,” “hide,” “run away,” and these end up being real choices which you can’t replay and change until you completely finish the game, at which point you can review all the various timeline bifurcations, offshoots, and branches. You can then replay a focal point and take a different path, but if you do so all the branches and directions of the plot and corresponding consequences that came after are erased and you won’t know what new outcome awaits you.

Some of the potential directions are dependent on physical choices: you may be in a situation where you are trying to escape some baddies and the screen will display various controller buttons and sequences that you must press quickly. You may have decided to sneak past some guards that are looking for rogue androids, but they spot you, and you must press “down joy stick”, and if you do in time then press “left trigger,” and if you succeed “right side button,” and if you succeed press “the triangle button”, and if you do all that quickly and accurately you scurry past them. But miss just one of those prompts and they clobber you and the plotline changes.

And you can’t reset and try again. The butterfly has been stomped and your direction is now set.

One of the storylines involves you playing as a young woman android in her mid-20s or so that has been purchased by a man to serve as a sort of nanny/maid for him and his young daughter, who’s about 8. It turns out he’s abusive, so you and the little girl escape and the rest of the game in this storyline involves you protecting this young girl as the two of you attempt to make your way to Canada, right across the river, where they value androids and treat them with equal rights. Along the way you have to make several moral as well as tactical decisions as you try to make your way to freedom. My branching led to the denouement where we attempt to get to Canada via a small boat, but other decisions may result in a bus trip.

My first playthrough resulted in the two of us getting to the Canadian shore, but then the little girl died in my arms after asking me, “Are we free now? Did we make it?” It was a heartbreaking conclusion to that storyline, so as soon as it ended I went to the menu where you could view each chapter’s decision and event trees and attempt to make changes.

Luckily it was the final chapter, so I didn’t have to redo much of that timeline. However, whatever I did, whatever different choices I made, the little girl still died. Sometimes she died before we crossed the river, but usually she’d die once we reached the Canadian shore. So I’d load up the game again and try something new.

Try to protect her in the boat from the ICE stand-ins who were shooting at us? Nope. Try to accelerate the boat past the guards shooting at us? Nope. Try to hide low in the boat so they don’t see us? Nope. Try to take a different route? Nope. Try talking to different people first? Nope. In every scenario usually the little girl would die. One time I got “lucky,” and the little girl survived, but I didn’t, and having her protector, her mother-stand in die at the shore, devastated her.

No matter the choices I made, no matter how hard I tried, I could not protect this little girl, I could not achieve a happy ending for her. I could not save her.

Maybe you see where this is going.

Unbelievably, somehow, I did not realize or notice that this was a metaphor for Adrianna. It was almost too on the nose, yet at the time it just didn’t click until I was talking to a friend of mine who’d played and recommended the game years ago, saying to him:

“No matter what I do I’m having trouble getting the little girl to survive.”

And when I read back what I had just texted to him, it did finally hit me and I realized why this game, at this moment, had captivated and held me, and why the original (and subsequent dozen or so other) ending devastated me.

Finally, however, after several tries and swatting different butterflies, making other choices and navigating the treacherous river full of danger and heartbreak, I successfully saved both the little girl and my character. She survived, and as you see the approaching headlights from an car in the storm, you know everything will be okay.

In reality, we only have one shot at this life. We can’t really go back and change decisions and hope for a better outcome. Knowing this can cause stress to people like me, because I was always trying to get it right but always fearing I wasn’t making the correct decision. As simplistic a metaphor for life as this game is, it still illustrates that even being allowed to replay an event with hindsight and foreknowledge of potential real future terrible outcomes, one still can’t assure success.

At the end of the day, maybe I should have tried to barter for that bag of corn, but I try not to beat myself up about that, and I try to remind myself that life is a multiplayer game in any event. I just wish Adri and I had made it to Canada.

Just Breathe

Occasionally I’ll try to relax my body and quiet my brain in an attempt to grab a brief respite from the effects of my grief by methodically breathing in and out. This usually occurs at night when I’m lying in bed at night, the darkest part of the day for me, both literally and metaphorically.

I’ll close my eyes and concentrate on slowly taking in air, letting my lungs gradually fill while focusing on this basic act of respiration which allows me to shut out every other conscious thought.

I hold that breath for a second or so before then exhaling, slowly releasing the spent oxygen until my lungs empty, again totally concentrating on this process, just allowing myself to be.

I repeat this cycle three or four times, a sort of cleansing ritual for mind, body, and soul that gives me a small brief moment of peace.

Every so often, however, after exhaling I’ll just stop. I won’t immediately breath in, but rather just allow my lungs to remain empty. At this point my body won’t be fighting to regain oxygen because it hasn’t been deprived long enough.

I’ll lie there in total silence with no movement or sound. No gentle respiratory movements or calming sounds of exhalation. As the seconds pass the quiet peace brought about by this exercise will be broken, and my mind will naturally go to Adri.

I’ll imagine and think about her last breath, how this is how it was for her, that she exhaled air from her lungs and then never took another breath in, and at that moment, lying in the dark in bed at night, I want to do the same.

I’ll sit there in that state for longer than I would have imagined was possible. Quiet, desolate seconds that seem like hours pass while I think about how and why her life came to an end, but then I’ll snap out of it and breathe in again, finally giving in to the inevitable autonomic response as I inhale, taking in a breath that my daughter never did.

A somewhat dark little melodrama played out at night, the circle of life encapsulated and distilled into five minutes of attempted meditation, but on balance I think it does help.

Those seconds with empty lungs are extremely peaceful, if fleeting.

Our Whistle

I wanted a way to communicate with Adrianna when we were out in public, a way to say “Hey, I’m over here,” or “Where are you? It’s time to go,” or even “Just so you know I see what you’re doing, so keep that in mind,” etc. 

We came up with a whistle, a short little four-note motif that would voice the four syllables of her name: “Ahh – Dree – Ahh – Nah.” 

I don’t know where the melody came from, other than it sort of mimicked the natural lilt of how her name sounded pronounced when calling it out.

The whistle was great because even at a low volume it could cut through the din of a crowd and reach her ears. She would either say, “I’m here, daddy,” or she’d come to me. 

We might have been at Target and maybe I’d have turned my back for a second and then she wasn’t next to me, so I’d do the whistle and then invariably find her in one of her favorite spots, the shoe section.

Or, she might be in line about to go down a big slide at The Discovery Zone and I’d see her anxiously looking around for me to make sure I was watching her about to take the plunge, so I’d do the whistle. Her eyes would then find me sitting with the other parents and she’d smile.

We did it so much that my cockatiel at the time learned the whistle as well, and the smart bird would often do it whenever she entered the room.

It was a great way to communicate: better than a furtive wave from the crowd to get her attention, easier to hear and echolocate in a throng of other kids or a maze of shopping aisles. It was also our own secret little connection that we both loved.

When she was older, during those years from about 12 to 16 when she was still a child who needed her parents but also wanted to begin to display independence and not be treated “like a little kid,” the whistle was an unobtrusive thing that didn’t cause her embarrassment when she was with her friends. She knew I was looking for her, and she’d nonchalantly let me know where she was or come to me and no one else but the two of us were the wiser.

Four little notes that kept us connected.

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I did the whistle the morning that she left us, hoping that somehow she would hear me, letting her know where I was, hoping that she’d return but of course knowing she wouldn’t.

I like to imagine she’s too busy trying on some shoes to hear me right away.

But hopefully one day.
 

"Love You Forever"

"Love You Forever" was always and will remain the most heartbreaking read in children's literature. I could never get through it then when she was little, and let's just say that the passage of time and events haven't softened its blow.

Read to countless children by countless caregivers since 1986, including, naturally, both her mother and me, independently.  It is almost borderline cliché at this point, of course, but that's for a reason. Universal themes often become this.

I know it's supposed to be uplifting, but it was almost too melancholy even then. All life eventually ends in loss, but providing acceptance and love along the way is all we have to make the ride as bearable as possible. 

Over Crediting

 My last post was an attempt to better illustrate my relationship with Adri, but I always worry that when I do so it can come across as “Look!... Look!.... what a great father I was, look at all I did!!” and that’s never my intention. Being a parent to your child should never need accolades for, you know, being a parent to your child. This was always a sore spot with me in the past.

I’d be out in public with Adri and constantly get praise and pats on the back for doing nothing other than spending time with her and taking care of her. I assume it was because I was a (relatively) young male with a child in tow, and as such would get credit for any little thing. The bar was pretty low, evidently, for guys taking care of children. 

“Ohhh…. It’s just so great that you’re taking your daughter to the museum!,”
or 

“Awww…. Look at that!! That dad is brushing his daughter’s hair!!!,”
or

“Wow! I think it’s wonderful that you hold her purse while she plays in the park!!,“
or

“Isn’t that Just. So. Cute!!! I love how you two are out seeing a movie together!,”
or

“I think you’re an AMAZING dad playing Barbies with her!”

Etc.

I’d want to ask them, “would you fawn over me doing these things if I were a woman?,” but I didn’t because I’m not confrontational. (Openly. 😉 )

I know they meant well. I know this was probably 95% just yet another example of one of my weird personality traits where I overthink things. Still, it made me feel guilty, a sort of imposter syndrome or what have you. It also made me a bit sad for a society that thought it was a big deal that a dad would do such things with his daughter. 

Sometimes I became overly sensitive to this, worried that people thought I was “showing off” or whatever by simply being human, and part of me worries that I might have come across that way in my previous post. 

The real point of my last post was just to try to illustrate a bit how much my identity was wrapped up in me being a father to Adrianna. We all have several roles during the course of our or lives, and that one was always the most important one to me, and it was all-encompassing.

She and I

She and I

I was 24 when Adrianna was born in 1988 in Austin, Texas, and my life changed forever on that day. This, of course, is not a unique experience: all parents lives are changed forever the day they become a parent. And there are other life-changing events as well unrelated to the initial onset of parenthood such as other births, deaths, marriages, career changes, etc., but that doesn’t diminish the super nova that was Adri’s arrival in my life.

And it goes without saying that this event created seismic waves in other lives as well, a tsunami that changed the direction of many, chief among them of course her mother but also other family members and eventual friends and even her own children, but this is my story, my reflections. It is, after all, the story that I’m the most intimately familiar with, but I want everyone to understand that the Hank-centric narrative thus created takes nothing away from others. 

This loss is extremely hard for all the reasons I’ve already stated and written about, and most of that is self-evident. Anyone with children would understand, obviously those who have lost children and especially those who have lost their only child, but of course you don’t need to experience such loss to have an inkling of the profound grief that those who knew Adrianna are experiencing.  People get it and have been extremely supportive, patient, and understanding. 

But there are only a few people that I think totally comprehend the full extent of what this has done to me, because they know from first-hand experience just how important she was, how close we were and just how much my life focused and revolved around her. 

For the first 12 years the entirety of my life and the decisions and choices made all revolved around her. I didn’t start making room for someone else until I met Cindy, and eventually I began to divide my efforts, thoughts, and decisions between the two of them. 

Cindy, however, is of course self-sufficient. She is an important part of my life, occupying one side of the same coin with Adri who occupied the other. Until May of this year I was still preoccupied with trying to make sure Adri succeeded in life and she still commanded an inordinate amount of energy and thought for the entirety of her almost 37 years. This is par for the course, obviously, for one’s children, but I think this is amplified with an only child and with Adrianna’s circumstances and my personality even further.

But those first 12 years it was literally just Adri and me, from my point of view. The first almost three years I was a stay-at-home dad while her mother and I finished school. We were poor students as most students are, so we qualified for WIC, the program for low-income people whose letters stood for “Women, Infants, and Children” which tried to aid the health of this population by supplementing food such as cheese, beans and formula as well as providing nutrition education. They required you to go to monthly (or weekly? I can’t remember) meetings where they talked infant and toddler nutrition as well as breast-feeding techniques and strategies. I was always the only male there (I mean, it’s right there in the name of the program: “Women”), but that was fine by me. 

Then I’d take the vouchers they gave us and shop for the blocks of cheese and bags of dried beans and cans of powdered formula that we’d stockpile, usually with Adri in tow. We were always together.

She was born a substantial nine pounds, and was in the 95th percentile for everything including length and head circumference. Of course, that couldn’t last forever or she’d have been 7 ft tall as an adult, so when those percentages started slipping the doctor got a bit concerned with weight loss. I’d come up with high-protein good-fat meals for her that I’d make daily, the main concoction being scrambled eggs with avocado, canned Veg-All, and occasionally chicken liver added that I’d make in the microwave every lunch. She never let me forget later in life that I’d fed her chicken liver, but eventually her weight did level out.

I began to worry that she wasn’t socializing enough with other children since it was just her and I during the day at home, so I looked for something that would help that situation and found the perfect thing: a job as a substitute at a local day care chain. It was great because I could take her with me and they’d include her care as part of my employment. She got to hang with other kids and I got to bring in a whopping $3.25 an hour to boot a couple times a week. Win-win.

Eventually I took over the computer education role at the chain and would go from school to school teaching the computer classes to the pre-K kids, and both Adri and I would eventually be based out of just one of the schools so she got to be member of the two-year-old room permanently. 

When my marriage ended and her mom moved to Louisville to be closer to her parents and took Adri with her I was devastated. I had the best visitation I could get back then, the first, third, and fifth weekend, Wednesday night, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, the week after Christmas, her spring break, and six weeks in the summer, but of course once she moved out of state I really couldn’t take advantage of the weekends, Father’s Day or Wednesdays. 

I moved back to Dallas to be near my family because it was a dark time for me. It rivaled how I feel now. Adri and I had literally been together 24/7, and suddenly I never saw her and had to wait weeks or months between seeing her. 

All I did during those periods without her was think of her and save all the money I could for plane tickets and gas money to drive up there. I had to find apartments that I could afford that would also allow her own room. I’d find jobs that would afford some flexibility, eventually working at and then buying a company that taught computer skills at DFW schools and rec centers so she could be with me when I was at work. 

I’d record movies and TV shows that she’d like and then draw on the VHS box little artwork for her. Some I’d send, some I’d keep so she could watch when she was here. I’d buy day planners and plan out the entire summer and spring break, filling each day with different activities: The zoo, the arboretum, the aquarium, the science museum, go karting, arts and craft projects at home, cooking lessons, swimming outings, Saturday kids’ movie days at the local dollar cinema, Six Flags, library visits. Anything and everything. 

Trying to cram as much life into the distilled and compressed time we had together, then watching her sleep at night filled with contentment yet dreading the day she’d leave again.

For Thanksgiving, I’d drive up to Louisville, pick her up, and then drive to Chicago to spend the holiday with my grandparents. This was more cost-efficient since it was just four days, and it provided us a nice road trip which she loved. We’d talk about everything and anything. Then I’d drop her back home in Louisville and drive back to Dallas in silence full of sadness and despair that was never rivaled until recently.

She told me everything. She called me excitedly when she was not yet 12 to tell me she had her first period. She talked to me about her body issues, about boys, about her family, about squabbles with her friends, about school, and about her hopes, fears and dreams. I was so extremely lucky that my daughter felt comfortable enough with me to talk with more honesty and about more issues than I had been as a child. It made me feel good, and lessened the pain of not being with her a bit. I thought I was doing something right, the best I could in an imperfect situation.

She knew how I felt, and even though she was a little girl she was concerned with what I was missing. One time she came with a tooth she’d hidden in her pocket. She had lost it a few days prior and brought it to me telling me that “It’s not fair that you never got one of my teeth for the tooth fairy.”

 I still have it. It was the tooth fairy’s loss. 

I’d write songs for her and about her, and give her a CD filled with them. When she’d return, she’d have learned them all. Music was important to both of us. At one point she got into an argument with one of her classmates when she was about three: she insisted that her daddy had written the Barney the Dinosaur song (“I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…”) but the other kid didn’t believe her. I had to break the sad news to her.

I helped her learn to ride a two-wheeler and taught her to drive a stick shift. We took a state-approved parent-taught self-paced driving class one summer so she could get her license. We’d watch old movies at night. We’d sing our songs. 

We’d drive up to Chicago one week each summer over July 4th, the 16-hour drive again filled with wonderful conversation and music. We’d watch fireworks on the banks of Lake Geneva and I got to witness the entire evolution of her childhood reflected and encapsulated in this experience over the years: at first being too young to pay attention, then finding them “beautiful,” then being “too old” for such baby stuff before eventually once again finding them beautiful and regretting when they ended. 

Then she’d go back to Louisville and I’d start saving money for the next trip and planning what we’d do.

Adri helped me decide on a ring for Cindy, and she was with us when I proposed. I couldn’t not have her there for that moment. We planned the wedding date for a day when Adri could be there. Cindy and I stood up by ourselves, but in my head Adri was my best girl.

She called me when she went into labor with Bryce, and I immediately got in my car and started the 12-hour drive to Louisville. When I was just entering Little Rock I got the call that Bryce had been born. I arrived a few hours later to a beaming daughter who now was a proud mother. 

It was one of the top 5 days of my life.

A year later she and her family moved to Dallas to be near me, and it was another top 5 for me. She said she wanted her boy to have a positive role model and to grow up in the place that she got to spend so many great days in as a child. It touched me deeply. 

She was my only child, and maybe because of that, and because I didn’t get to see her every day and missed out on so many little things, she became what some might think too big a part of my life. Her issues also demanded a bit more care and attention, in my opinion. Perhaps I was too attached; perhaps she was too attached. 

But for better or worse she was basically my raison d'être, my entire purpose in life, all that I had done and all that I would do. My redeeming contribution to my life that I always felt otherwise fell short of my expectations and potential… but she was enough.

And now she’s gone. 

Multiverse Dreams

I dare to imagine a universe where Adri thrives

I try to take solace in the notion that in a many-worlds multiverse there exists a version of my daughter who finishes out her first semester at The University of Louisville, moving from the dorm room that she inhabits alone to one with a roommate where she doesn’t feel isolated. They become lifelong friends providing emotional support in good times and bad.

Upon graduation she fulfills her dream of being a therapist and uses some of her hard-knock life lessons to help others. She takes graduate-level courses along the way, but while doing so lives her life helping others and feeling fulfilled in both her professional and personal life.

Her heart surgery for Wolff-Parkinson White syndrome that she had when she was 16 made her acutely aware of how fragile the human body was.  She knew how important it was to live as healthy as possible and didn’t neglect either her physical or mental well-being. Though active with her career, she still saved time for herself, and even finally quit smoking via Chantix, having no worries about any purported side effects on mood.

She fell in love and was loved, eventually having the four children she wanted, two of which were Bryce and Wesley (this is an infinite world multiverse instance, remember, so every reality is possible and thus I will not forsake the boys for different reality without them.)

Her family finds a little house full of warm morning sunlight with a backyard with trees and a bird bath. She sits on the patio with her morning coffee watching her children play with their dog while a blue jay squawks its commentary from the fence post. She wonders how life could ever be better than this and she’s grateful.

She wakes up happy every morning and goes to sleep every night content, proud of her children, and her family proud of her. And she knows this.

She is active in the community and plays it forward volunteering for such things as Meals on Wheels and food banks as well as providing free counseling at clinics, playing forward all the help she’d received just as she always knew she would. She parlays her intimate knowledge of the day-to-day struggle life can be into helping others, and in so doing quiets her soul a bit and finally feels worthy of any help she’d received in the past.

As a grandmother she dotes on her grandchildren and continues the tradition of ravioli making with them at the holidays, passing on knowledge gleamed from her nonna who in turn had learned from her nonna. She writes two-page missives for each grandchild for every birthday, and they look forward to it every year. She becomes the role model of several generations.

Through it all she still talks to her mom and dad every day, sharing little moments of brightness from her life, a life not without some struggle or heartache or challenge, but a life of fulfillment and peace none the less.

I know that reality, that universe, exists, one of the many created by bifurcations caused by choices made or the occurrence of random events out of anyone’s control. I (we) are stuck in this superposition, but Adri is thriving in the other.

She’s outside on her patio drinking coffee watching the boys playing with their puppy. And she’s smiling.

Cry

More than three months out and I still find myself crying daily. I assume that’s normal and not a bad thing, but I’m not a fan. What starts it isn’t always some trigger (a song, a picture, a video, a line in a TV show or movie, an offhand comment made, etc.,) though of course it often is.

No, sometimes I just suddenly remember what the reality is, as if I’d somehow forgotten for a bit what had happened. These sudden reminders are not asked for and come out of the blue, and when they do there are tears.

Again, all perfectly normal, I assume. 

The sadness is brought about by a myriad of things or reasons, and if I’m somehow able to wrap my head around one of them, another rears its ugly head like a mutli-headed hydra (is there any other kind? Must research). Here are the reasons, the ideas, the realities that cause me such despair that the tears flow (“…. the Policeman Said.” H/T Philip K. Dick) in no particular order:

1. I cry because I miss her so
2. I cry when I think of what the boys are going through.
3. I cry imagining what the boys went through that morning.
4. I cry for the hardships my daughter had to face daily.
5. I cry because at times I think I failed my ONE JOB as a parent, to take care of my child and make sure she was safe and healthy and okay.
6. I cry because I see a future emptier without her and am afraid to face it.
7. I cry because I’m 13 years older than Cindy and fear that now there will be no one to take care of her when she’s older. Adri had promised me she’d look out for her for me.
8. I cry when I realize we’ll never be able to do X for her or take her to see Y or give her Z
9. I cry thinking about how she’ll never see her boys grow up to be adults.
10. I cry for her mother. I cry for Stephen. I cry for her grandparents. I cry for her friends.
11. I cry for myself.
12. I cry imagining what she went through that morning, hoping that it was painless, hoping that she didn’t feel alone, hoping that she saw some peace, but not knowing and crying some more.
13. I cry when I think of how Kathy and Elaine and Alicia and countless others felt and still feel.
14. I cry for time lost with her these last five years.
15. I cry for the future memories promised that will never be made.

I know this all has to come out to survive and go on, but if this was a reality show I’d vote these feelings off the island in a heartbeat. They are the weakest link. They weren’t posed in the from of a question, and they have been eliminated from the Amazing Race.

If only.