The best of me

There are times when it feels like the best part of me has been stolen, ripped away violently, My son, my daughter's expressiveness. I watch them on video with me and I wonder if I recognize myself. Would I know myself now? More than ever, I wonder why I am here. Why and how did I survive? How will I find the strength to go on? To serve my daughter? Love is strong, but sometimes it feels like despair wins. Like shadows during the day, I unwittingly let sadness prevail for a time. I let Ani's uncertain future cloud the way I look at her. My love for her is unfailing, it is my application that fails sometimes. How do I allow for myself when she is more important than me? I would still give myself up for her. I don't want to miss Ani's beauty because I find distractions. There are no easy answers, maybe the constant questioning can keep me going, keep me from giving in to her current condition and not expecting more from her. I know she hears me, and I need to keep her belief in herself, it's what I want most of all in this world.


-- Post From My iPhone

Honoring and feeling for Ani

I can grieve for Nate, I really can (and very, very often do). But I’m stumped on how to feel or grieve with the losses that Ani (and we) have suffered. I very keenly feel the loss of Ani’s voice, both through our old conversations and her singing. I grieve the loss of her voice for those things, as well as the fact that she cannot tell us what is wrong with her when she cries. I grieve not hearing “Daddy” or “Mommy”, oh how I grieve for those. She doesn’t seem to be frustrated, or angry at these losses, though I sometimes tell her how I miss her singing, and how much she needs to try and tell us what’s wrong. I want to be angry for her, since she doesn’t express it. I don’t show this anger to her, or to anyone really, but I feel it, and pray about it nonetheless. I am sad, and sometimes cry with her, and I don’t know how this comes across to her. I am so confused sometimes, because I can see Ani’s facial expressions sometimes that are how she looked before the tornado (I _hate_ writing that word). I am torn between “Ani that was”, “Ani that is, and is sometimes Ani that was”, and “What will Ani be?”. My hope teeters on a tightrope and I feel guilty about sometimes looking at her now through “Ani as she was” colored glasses. She deserves to be treated as who she is, now, not who she was or who she will be. However, having said that, I need to motivate her somehow, and I wonder if telling her that I want her to sing to me again helps. This past weekend, I came across a note that Lexie wrote about Ani coloring on the tablecloth, and a lot of the written words sound just like how Ani would speak, and that Ani would apologize to us in the morning. At the bottom, Ani wrote her name. Seeing this, I nearly fell to my knees, oh my precious Ani, how trivial a tablecloth is. I remember the night, and Ani was not asleep when we returned from our concert, she was concerned about how we felt. Once we went up and reassured her that we loved her no matter what (she was genuinely concerned), she fell asleep immediately. Oh my sensitive little girl, I tell you so many times that I love you always. Last night I was pointing out the things on the wall from the kids at her old daycare wishing her well. I was trying to impart my feeling and assessment of the amount of prayer she receives. I kept saying “and this child wants you to get better, and this one, and this one”. It took several minutes to get through them all. She just got this big grin.
I want so much to honor her. Am I honoring her by mourning the loss of her capabilities? Am I shaming her by not fully accepting her as she is at any instant? I tried to do that before the tornado. I kept telling myself that she’s growing and developing and that “she is who she is”, but this is different. I am confused by the balance of “Should I treat her as she was”, “How much do I expect from her in her current condition”, “Telling her that she will talk somehow again”, “Don’t ever give up, all these kids want you to keep fighting”…and on and on. Do I say “I’m sorry for what happened”? When I’ve said this sort of thing before when she’s been sick or hurt, she asked me “Why are you sorry daddy?”. I try so hard, and my human weaknesses get in the way. My desires or distractions get in the way sometimes. When I am away from her, my hope drains. When I’m with her and I want somebody else to see her smile or hear her laugh, I sometimes find it difficult, as if I’m getting Ani to perform somehow. When it’s just me and Ani, just the natural situations, or responding to her cues can get us both laughing, and that feeling is unbelievable.
Maybe this isn’t a whole lot different than normal “how do I relate to my child” issues that parents normally go through, but I think about this a lot.