Sunday, August 2, 2015

"Love You...See You Never"

It has been just over two weeks since my daughter's diagnosis.  It seems like longer.  It seems like minutes.  I find myself wanting to not make a big deal out of my daughter having MRKH...telling myself to stop being so dramatic, stop being overly emotional, stop thinking about it so much, stop bothering friends with my feelings, stop crying randomly.  Something happened the day she was formally diagnosed; a strange disruption to innocence occurred...her innocence, my innocence, life's innocence.  I have had plenty of trauma in my lifetime, so it is not like I am some kind of Pollyanna whose bubble just burst...I lost my father when I was very young, my mother suffered (suffers) from mental illness, I struggled with addiction, numerous tumultuous relationships, break-ups, make-ups, a stillborn baby...I am not innocent of the pain and suffering of life.  Yet, my daughter being diagnosed with MRKH has seemed to disrupt innocence in a way that I cannot quite explain...my daughter's life has been forever changed, and this has changed my life forever, too.  Maybe someday the words will come that will allow me to explain to myself, to others, how this diagnosis interrupted and disrupted our life and the innocence that has enveloped it.

Tonight my daughter is staying overnight at a friend's house.  As she left with her friend, she laughed over her shoulder, "Love you, see you never."  She has said this before, and it has never struck me as anything but my sassy, wonderful daughter being herself; however, today when she said it, I felt a pain in the pit of my stomach, and wanted her to never say it again.  Something has changed.  The reality of mortality, maybe?  I suppose that having one of my children diagnosed with a rare syndrome that I cannot fix might made me face the reality of my mortality, of my children's mortality.  I am not sure, all I know is that the thought of never seeing my daughter again makes my stomach ache in the same way that it has often ached when I have missed my dad...only worse, much worse.

To distract myself from the feelings that her comment brought up, I busied myself with housework.  I cleaned my bedroom, organizing dresser drawers that were desperate for attention.  Then, I decided to change my daughter's bedding, seeing how I had the chance because she was away for the night.  After I pulled the sheets and blankets from the bed and put them in the washing machine, I went back into her room to pick up some trash that had been pushed under the bed...Starburst wrappers and other small things.  I spent the next two hours cleaning her room...something I have not done for her since she was in grade school.  There was something healing about cleaning her room. I felt close to her; I felt like I was taking care of her;  I felt that with every dust bunny I was chasing away, I was giving her a hug; I was protecting her.  It occurred to me that cleaning my daughter's room, like I did when she was little, restored some of the innocence that seemed to have disappeared the day my daughter was diagnosed.

In my core, when I move past the fear that the disruption of innocence brings, I know that all will be well.  I have seen innocence interrupted before, and I am sure I will see it again.  However, I have also seen innocence and wonder and happiness restored...even after some of the most traumatic disruptions of innocence.  I saw it restored tonight as I straightened my daughter's pictures and made her bed with fresh linens...I knew that everything was going to be okay as I placed her stuffed pink bunny next to her pillow.

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