Forever In My Heart Friday. FIMHF. Week 30. So I originally had other plans for this week’s blog but then last night happened and my whole thought process changed this morning.
She was not home yet, it was getting late. Myesha was not answering her phone and I could not GPS it because the phone must have been shut off. But she never shuts off her phone? Where could she be? Who was this guy she was meeting for the first time? I get on her computer to quickly find out that she actually met him on some teen chat page/dating site. I am livid. She had been on this site before and I made her deactivate the account in fear that she would end of meeting some weirdo or pedophile. But her inbox was full of messages. UGH! Which guy was it?? Where could she have gone with him?? I’m angry. I’m worried. I’m scared. I pull her phone log and try to research the numbers that she has been constantly texting and talking to over the last couple days. Sorting out which ones where friends and numbers I knew, and which ones looked unfamiliar. It wasn’t hard to find the information I needed. It was now getting dark. I’m freaking out. I call the police. Suddenly my house is filled with detectives and police officers gathering as much information as possible to her disappearance. But we now had a phone number to go off of. That phone number gave a name. That name gave us photo identification from the inbox conversation on the computer. The search was on and all I could do was sit here anxiously waiting for any news as to her location. The police officers and detectives assured me that they would find her and because it was still so fresh, that they would bring her back to me safely. I waited. I prayed. I cried. Then just a few short hours later a knock at the door and the detective was standing there. He said they found her. Oh the since of relief I had. He came inside and I immediately asked where she was and when I could see her. He looked at me with this blank look and I could see the distress in his face. He no longer could look me in the eye. He shifted his head towards the floor. “She’s gone. I’m sorry Ms. Wiley. We did everything we could to find her in time, but she is dead. We found her body in a car on the side of the highway.” No!!! NO!!! NO!!!
My alarm goes off at 4:15am and it jolts me out of my sleep this morning. SNOOZE!! SNOOZE!! I’m slapping the buttons as fast as possible to stop the noise. I have to go back. I have to go back and get her. They had the wrong girl. My daughter was not dead! Damn this alarm clock! I close my eyes and go back. Back to get her. No sooner I’m there the alarm pulls me back in to reality again. I laid in bed this morning with tears streaming down my eyes. She’s gone. Myesha, my daughter, is really gone. Although my rational mind knows she has died, the unconscious, the emotions, must recreate the loss repeatedly. References to fate and time are plentiful.
Adjusting to life without my child has been a long and difficult process, and I often struggle to make sense her death. The grieving process includes dealing with so many issues and emotions that I am not confined to grieve in just my waking hours. Indeed, being nothing more than emotionally wounded. I realize these dreams, these images, seem to reflect not only my concerns for her, but also my own suffering over this loss, my own damaged vitality level, and impaired life force.
I remember right after she died I could not sleep. I was scared to fall asleep. I would not allow myself to be in a dark room, so I kept my lamp on all night. I would try to force myself to stay awake until my body just collapsed from exhaustion. If you think about it, sleep is the primary way in which we release control. When you experience a life loss, you feel a great loss of control. At a subconscious level, I can say that I didn’t want to lose any more control by sleeping. I didn’t want any of this to be real. I was emotionally exhausted from falling asleep and waking in the same nightmare of a life that was so cruelly placed before me.
When I would sleep, my perceptions of reality were no longer in my conscience control. I would replay her death over and over and over again each and every night. Not a memory forgot. Every detail just as vivid as it was in life. The sound of the machine’s flat lining. The doctor’s words “Potentially Fatal” echoed relentlessly. That’s when the dream is nothing short of a nightmare, and all you want to do is wake up and make it all go away. Some days I would wake up and fly out of my bed and run down the hall looking for her the bedrooms. I would call her phone to see if she answered if I could not find her. Then it would hit me…Myesha is dead and she was never coming back. I would collapse into my pillow, squeezing it tight, filling it with a plethora of tears.
I eventually hung her class ring on the gold cross necklace that my uncle gave me at my high school graduation, on the lampshade of my lamp on my nightstand. As crazy as it sounded, if I woke from my dreams, it would remind me that I was not stuck in some vortex. My life was very real indeed. Instead of running to look for her in the house, I would stare at the lampshade and that class ring. I would instantly break down. Crying so hard that I felt my chest would cave in if I couldn’t catch my breath. Throat tight. Body shaking. Just ugly crying.
Then it finally happened one night, I found her! There she was in my dream, but it was such a short encounter I couldn’t remember any of the details when I woke up the next morning. I was mad at myself. Mad that when I woke up in the middle of the night, that I didn’t write down what happened so I wouldn’t forget. Regret.
But then 1 week later she came back. Myesha came back to see me again. This time even more vivid than last. She looked so beautiful. I could see her so clearly as if she was standing right in front of me in real life. Her voice was her own. Her smile was infectious. She spoke to me in such a casual manner as if nothing had ever happened. There she was just standing in my bedroom. “Hey Momma!!!” she said. I was speechless. I began to cry. She said, “Momma don’t be sad. I’m okay. I’m with Dad now and everything is okay. So please don’t be sad and cry anymore. I am always with you.” Before I had a chance to respond she lifted up the side of her shirt and with the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning she showed me her new tattoo that she got in Heaven. It wrapped around her rib cage and down her side. It was green ivy and vines. While it was incredibly beautiful, it was not something I would expect her to get a tattoo of. “Why that?” I asked. Her response, “Because I thought it was cool!” Yep that was Myesha. Impulsive and without fear or recourse. I laughed and shock my head. And before I had a chance to say anything else, she turned and looked up towards the ceiling, then quickly back at me. “Momma, I have to go back now. But I want you to know how much I love you!” And just like that she was gone.
I woke up instantly and looked over to the mirror where she was just standing. She was not there. I Iooked up at the lamp shade. Neckless still there. Reality confirmed. But she really was there. I felt her. I saw her. It was all so clear. I truly believe she came back to tell me that she was indeed okay. To tell me one last time that she loved me, and of course to show off yet another tattoo that she had done without my knowledge or permission. Lol.
This dream was my gift. I try my best to remind myself that still seeing her in my dreams is a beautiful thing. I’d rather have these moments where I’m keeping her memory alive, because in those moments I feel so appreciative that I was HER mother, and she was MY daughter.
I guess you could say our dreams help heal our grief. Dreaming is as real as waking life to our minds and hearts, experiences like this allow for many possibilities of completing the “unfinished business” that comes with loss. The dreams allow us to acknowledge our loss at the beginning of the day, and remind us that our love is still very much alive. They bring all these struggling emotions into balance. Even the painful ones teach us where we are at the moment. They help us to accept our loss. They light our path toward a new life. Let them sit with you; let them show you the way to your heart and your grief. Sometimes the way in is the way out. FIM <3 F. Mommy loves you Myesha!