Peephole

 

I am still struggling daily, hourly, with coming to terms with the reality that my daughter is no longer here and never will be. It’s the unthinkable and unacceptable true reality that forces itself into my brain uninvited multiple times per day, hour. It’s feels like a kind of torture. I imagine it’s akin to how they sleep-deprive prisoners with loud music and bright lights, but sadistically make it worse by letting them drift off to sleep for a second or two before then waking them up again with a slap to the face or dousing them with cold water.

This on-again, off-again state sprinkled with small moments of teasingly tantalizing sleep that is then yanked away again and again is worse than just totally depriving them of sleep and letting them become used to that state. Not allowing them to adapt to their situation but rather remind them of what they’re missing is multiple times worse on their psyche.

That’s what it feels like to me. My brain will allow myself to forget or at least not think about this reality for small swaths of time only to then have that temporary respite brought to a shattering end with a flood of thoughts, images, and memories that smack me down like a bucket of cold water or slap to the face, loudly proclaiming that Adrianna is gone forever, seeming to punish me for forgetting for a moment.

When I “remember” I often try to soften the blow a bit by imagining she’s still here, in the space that I currently occupy in this house. I can see her in the kitchen, on the stairway, in the entryway, in what was her room. I can hear her clearly as well, always talking to the boys the way she did.

Sometimes in the middle of the night when it’s bad I will go downstairs to the entryway where I can usually sense and feel her presence the strongest. I sit on the stairs and watch and listen to her talking to her boys, looking at me with her big bright eyes and smiling. It breaks my heart but is almost real.

Whenever they’d come over for a visit I’d start to get impatient waiting for their arrival and would park myself in front of the door in the entryway, peering out through the peephole full of anticipation for her car to pull up. When it finally did it would take all my self-control to not open the door immediately. Instead I’d wait for what seemed an eternity for them to get out of the car and start towards our door. The boys usually running with Adri watching them and smiling.

I’ve found myself these last couple of days going to the door and staring out that same peephole, hoping and waiting for Adrianna to arrive, allowing myself this little fiction, letting myself pretend that, any minute now, the car will pull up and the doors finally open and she’ll start walking up the cobblestone path to my door.

This time I won’t wait. I’ll open the door as soon as she pulls up and I’ll run out to her and hug her and never let her go.