Kobi,
Your nieces have changed. I use to sit and listen to them play, and they would only talk about horses, butterflies and regular family life. Now, what is left of my heart hurts when I listen to them. They talk about being afraid. They talk about bad people who might come and get them like they got you. They worry about the world around them in a way they never did before. They don't feel safe in their own home. They are afraid that the person who killed you, is coming to kill them, us. I wish I could tell them I'm not afraid too. I wish I could tell them not to be afraid, that I will always protect them from all the evil things this world may throw their way, but I can't.
I can't tell them that I'm not going to be murdered. I can't tell them that they will get to live their lives without being shot or raped. I can't tell them any of the things that I wish I could tell them. So instead, I tell them that I love them to the moon and back, and to the sun and back, like you told them, and then I tell them not to worry. But I do. Because bad men are shooting up schools. Bad men are shooting hundreds of people attending a concert. Movie theaters aren't safe, their schools aren't safe, even churches aren't safe. We live in a world where someone as kind and loving as you, was taken without rhyme or reason. And I can't take that away for them. I can't make it go away, as much as I wish that I could.
So while you are sending me your signs of love, if there is anyway for you to do so, please help your nieces feel safe. They miss you so much. I know you are always with them, but make sure they know too. They asked me today if you missed them, and I told them you did without any doubts. I need you around these next few days. Because 6 months ago today, I had no idea the next 72 hours would be the worst of my entire life. I love you so much it hurts, all the time. I miss you, Kobi.
Love you to the moon and back, and to the sun and back.
Sissy
Monday, October 30, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Grief: In Pictures
Kobi Lee,
Many people think that grief is simple. They think it's tears, sadness, a longing for life that is now lost. It's that, but it's also so much more.
It's wanting to live because someone took your life and now I have to pretend I'm living life to the fullest since you don't get to.
But it's also wanting to lie on your grave and die too.
It's crying with my kids and holding their sobbing little bodies in my arms while trying to explain the impossible.
But it's also trying to smile and enjoy the moment because they deserve it.
It's crying on my bathroom floor and then turning around and seeing my friends while pretending that I'm fine.
It's drinks for two, me and you. But also because, I need 2 drinks to make it through this evening.
It's being a proud parent and smiling in the pure enjoyment of parenthood, but it's also the horrifying realization that you will never see another milestone of theirs.
It's hopelessness while pretending to be hopeful. Doing interview after interview to convince someone to call in a tip to help solve your murder.
It's smiling because the sun is out, and in the moment that the wind blows really hard and I'm thinking of you, that I believe that you are with me in that very moment.
It's all of this, and everything in between.
This is grief. And I'm just living in it.
We all miss you. All the time.
Here It Comes
Kobi,
There is a box up in my attic that will break my heart in just about 6 weeks. It has Christmas decorations in it, and somewhere in that box are stockings with everyone's name on them. With your name on one. I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the holidays this year. December has always been extra hard for us, and it took me many years to finally find some joy in it again. Christmas was Dad's favorite holiday, the 23rd is his birthday, and on the 27th it will be 13 years since we lost him. He would wake us up at the crack of dawn and funnel everyone out to the living room where our massive amount of Christmas presents would be. Every. Single. Year.
When you and I were kids we would get put into the bathroom while they brought in the presents they bought. We would sit in there and talk about what we thought we got. Then come Christmas Eve, I would always ask you if I could sleep up in your room. You never said no. I would ask you every 10 minutes, "Are you still awake?" I didn't want to be the only one who couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. We would talk about tomorrow and come morning we'd be woke up by Dad saying, "Kobi, Kala, Santa was here!" We would run down the stairs and set our eyes upon the presents under the tree. It was usually around 5 am.
I have spent every single Christmas with you for 25 years. After Dad passed they were teary for a while, and then, I had Abby. Abby made us enjoy our favorite holiday again. Those girls breathed life back into us. They got mountains of toys and they slept in the same room when they got older and they got woken up by, me. I was too excited. I wanted to see their faces. I would wake you up before I woke them up and your head would pop right up. You were excited too. You would help us bring presents out and help me wrap and fill stockings. You were always there. Always. The girls haven't spent a single Christmas without you, or even without DeVon. He has a stocking too.
I am having the hardest time right now. I could pretend you got too busy and had to work on their birthday, although you always took it off. I could pretend we were all too strapped to go to the zoo on my birthday, and that you were too busy on your own. I can't, however, even remotely pretend that you would be anywhere else in the world, on Christmas. The Keurig we got you for Christmas last year is sitting in my house, and all the presents you got us are here too. I see them all the time. In fact, your very own ring is sitting on the elephant ring holder you got me.
I've only spent 2 Thanksgivings away from you. It just so happens that 1 of those was last year. Last year I went to Georgia with Casey's family, and the only time I spent it without you, was when we went to Georgia. Last year I almost didn't go. You were having a tough time, and then, while I was gone, Rho died. I felt guilty. I hated that you went through that while I was away. I spent over an hour on the phone with you and told you you could bury her at my house. I still feel bad that when we moved, we left your cat behind. I had thought about moving her out there, with you, but I could hear you saying "Ewwwww." in my head, and doing that little shiver thing you did, so I didn't. You're welcome.
We always made sure there were enough chairs at our table for the holidays. We always made sure there was a chair for you. When we moved we finally bought a new dining room table since ours was ancient. We bought an 8 seater, and when it was first moved into the new house, I stood in the doorway and stared at it. I imagined you sitting there, I imagined having our celebrations in that room. So now, we have 2 extra chairs in our home. I still had to make sure that we had room for you...
I love you. I miss you so much it hurts.
Sissy
There is a box up in my attic that will break my heart in just about 6 weeks. It has Christmas decorations in it, and somewhere in that box are stockings with everyone's name on them. With your name on one. I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the holidays this year. December has always been extra hard for us, and it took me many years to finally find some joy in it again. Christmas was Dad's favorite holiday, the 23rd is his birthday, and on the 27th it will be 13 years since we lost him. He would wake us up at the crack of dawn and funnel everyone out to the living room where our massive amount of Christmas presents would be. Every. Single. Year.
When you and I were kids we would get put into the bathroom while they brought in the presents they bought. We would sit in there and talk about what we thought we got. Then come Christmas Eve, I would always ask you if I could sleep up in your room. You never said no. I would ask you every 10 minutes, "Are you still awake?" I didn't want to be the only one who couldn't sleep on Christmas Eve. We would talk about tomorrow and come morning we'd be woke up by Dad saying, "Kobi, Kala, Santa was here!" We would run down the stairs and set our eyes upon the presents under the tree. It was usually around 5 am.
I have spent every single Christmas with you for 25 years. After Dad passed they were teary for a while, and then, I had Abby. Abby made us enjoy our favorite holiday again. Those girls breathed life back into us. They got mountains of toys and they slept in the same room when they got older and they got woken up by, me. I was too excited. I wanted to see their faces. I would wake you up before I woke them up and your head would pop right up. You were excited too. You would help us bring presents out and help me wrap and fill stockings. You were always there. Always. The girls haven't spent a single Christmas without you, or even without DeVon. He has a stocking too.
I am having the hardest time right now. I could pretend you got too busy and had to work on their birthday, although you always took it off. I could pretend we were all too strapped to go to the zoo on my birthday, and that you were too busy on your own. I can't, however, even remotely pretend that you would be anywhere else in the world, on Christmas. The Keurig we got you for Christmas last year is sitting in my house, and all the presents you got us are here too. I see them all the time. In fact, your very own ring is sitting on the elephant ring holder you got me.
I've only spent 2 Thanksgivings away from you. It just so happens that 1 of those was last year. Last year I went to Georgia with Casey's family, and the only time I spent it without you, was when we went to Georgia. Last year I almost didn't go. You were having a tough time, and then, while I was gone, Rho died. I felt guilty. I hated that you went through that while I was away. I spent over an hour on the phone with you and told you you could bury her at my house. I still feel bad that when we moved, we left your cat behind. I had thought about moving her out there, with you, but I could hear you saying "Ewwwww." in my head, and doing that little shiver thing you did, so I didn't. You're welcome.
We always made sure there were enough chairs at our table for the holidays. We always made sure there was a chair for you. When we moved we finally bought a new dining room table since ours was ancient. We bought an 8 seater, and when it was first moved into the new house, I stood in the doorway and stared at it. I imagined you sitting there, I imagined having our celebrations in that room. So now, we have 2 extra chairs in our home. I still had to make sure that we had room for you...
I love you. I miss you so much it hurts.
Sissy
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Everything Has Changed
Kobi,
When you died, I knew that things wouldn't be the same. I also knew, I couldn't let them be the same. If you were going to be gone, things had to be different. I couldn't walk in my front door that you walked through many times before. I couldn't sit on the floor of my living room that we opened presents on for many years before. I simply couldn't.
But mostly, I couldn't stare at that spot where my friend held me as I sobbed while waiting for Casey to get home from work after I found out it was you. I couldn't stand in the spot in front of my kitchen counter where I opened up the website that had a picture of your apartment complex with "Body Found" on the front page. I couldn't sleep in my bed, by the spot where I doubled over and screamed when they said, "The deceased does have those characteristics." Like you were some lost pet I was describing. I couldn't do these things. I didn't have it in me to just remember the good. I was too traumatized. I was in too much pain.
So after I identified your body, after I viewed you in your casket, after I drove away from you for the last time you were above ground, I started looking. I looked for a new home for my family. I looked for a safe home. Somewhere that you hadn't stepped foot in, somewhere that possible suspects wouldn't know where we were. And I found one. Buying a new home in a new school district meant that we would be leaving our friends, neighbors, and everything we had come to know. It was scary, and frightening. The girls had friends there, I loved their teachers, I loved my friends, and I loved being a Girl Scout leader to my troop, but most of all, I loved you.
I thought about it long and hard. If it was the right move for the girls. If uprooting everything they knew would do more damage than their hearts had already experienced, but then I thought back to my own experiences. I was the girl whose father completed suicide. Feeling like that title and that trauma haunted me in every classroom and everything I ever did. I didn't want my girls to be the girls whose uncle was murdered. And in the tiny town that we lived in, that's exactly who they would have been. Rather or not they meant it maliciously wouldn't have mattered. It would have been a scar for the world to see. It also would have been hard walking into a school that you and I grew up in. Existing under a roof you once existed under. Seeing both of our classmates in the hallway and your nieces playing with their kids. Trying to forget playing on the playground with you so I can be strong and celebrate my kids accomplishments. It was all too much for me, and I didn't want it all to be too much for them.
So we packed up our stuff, and your stuff, and we moved over a county, to a new district, a new neighborhood, an entirely new life. I have lost a lot in the past 5 months. None of them even compare to the scar of losing you, but all of it added together has been a lot to adjust to. My life is entirely different from what it was 5 months ago, in several different ways. But you are the biggest missing piece, a piece of my border. The piece that makes me, me. I don't even know who I am anymore, and it isn't because of my location, so much of me was you.
Our daily conversations, the way I thought, the way I acted, everything I did in some way, had to do with you. I told you about everything, the big, small, bad, good, and the ugly, even the really ugly. Now all of that conversation, all of that friendship is gone. It's an empty void in my life. It's there in the mornings when I would be on the phone with you while driving, on my lunch breaks when I needed you to convince me that I don't suck at being a mother or my job, during my drive home when I would call you to tell you all about my day, and in the evenings, when Casey was at work and I needed adult conversation, and you needed to vent. I worried about you constantly, too. The silence of all the space you use to take up, is more painful than I can describe. It pushes me to tears, to the floor, and into a depression unlike I've ever known before.
Everything in my life has changed, and it isn't for the better. I miss you, and love you so very much.
Sissy
When you died, I knew that things wouldn't be the same. I also knew, I couldn't let them be the same. If you were going to be gone, things had to be different. I couldn't walk in my front door that you walked through many times before. I couldn't sit on the floor of my living room that we opened presents on for many years before. I simply couldn't.
But mostly, I couldn't stare at that spot where my friend held me as I sobbed while waiting for Casey to get home from work after I found out it was you. I couldn't stand in the spot in front of my kitchen counter where I opened up the website that had a picture of your apartment complex with "Body Found" on the front page. I couldn't sleep in my bed, by the spot where I doubled over and screamed when they said, "The deceased does have those characteristics." Like you were some lost pet I was describing. I couldn't do these things. I didn't have it in me to just remember the good. I was too traumatized. I was in too much pain.
So after I identified your body, after I viewed you in your casket, after I drove away from you for the last time you were above ground, I started looking. I looked for a new home for my family. I looked for a safe home. Somewhere that you hadn't stepped foot in, somewhere that possible suspects wouldn't know where we were. And I found one. Buying a new home in a new school district meant that we would be leaving our friends, neighbors, and everything we had come to know. It was scary, and frightening. The girls had friends there, I loved their teachers, I loved my friends, and I loved being a Girl Scout leader to my troop, but most of all, I loved you.
I thought about it long and hard. If it was the right move for the girls. If uprooting everything they knew would do more damage than their hearts had already experienced, but then I thought back to my own experiences. I was the girl whose father completed suicide. Feeling like that title and that trauma haunted me in every classroom and everything I ever did. I didn't want my girls to be the girls whose uncle was murdered. And in the tiny town that we lived in, that's exactly who they would have been. Rather or not they meant it maliciously wouldn't have mattered. It would have been a scar for the world to see. It also would have been hard walking into a school that you and I grew up in. Existing under a roof you once existed under. Seeing both of our classmates in the hallway and your nieces playing with their kids. Trying to forget playing on the playground with you so I can be strong and celebrate my kids accomplishments. It was all too much for me, and I didn't want it all to be too much for them.
So we packed up our stuff, and your stuff, and we moved over a county, to a new district, a new neighborhood, an entirely new life. I have lost a lot in the past 5 months. None of them even compare to the scar of losing you, but all of it added together has been a lot to adjust to. My life is entirely different from what it was 5 months ago, in several different ways. But you are the biggest missing piece, a piece of my border. The piece that makes me, me. I don't even know who I am anymore, and it isn't because of my location, so much of me was you.
Our daily conversations, the way I thought, the way I acted, everything I did in some way, had to do with you. I told you about everything, the big, small, bad, good, and the ugly, even the really ugly. Now all of that conversation, all of that friendship is gone. It's an empty void in my life. It's there in the mornings when I would be on the phone with you while driving, on my lunch breaks when I needed you to convince me that I don't suck at being a mother or my job, during my drive home when I would call you to tell you all about my day, and in the evenings, when Casey was at work and I needed adult conversation, and you needed to vent. I worried about you constantly, too. The silence of all the space you use to take up, is more painful than I can describe. It pushes me to tears, to the floor, and into a depression unlike I've ever known before.
Everything in my life has changed, and it isn't for the better. I miss you, and love you so very much.
Sissy
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Next to You
Kobi,
I was going through pictures the other day, and I noticed something I hadn't before. In almost every picture that we are in together, we are right beside each other, or close together. Even in photos of us walking, we are usually walking side by side. I have always gravitated toward you. It's always where I've wanted to be.
You were bouncing around the idea of moving back to Indiana when you lived in Ohio. You were at my house at the time, and I told you, "I wish you would come back home. I always feel better when you are around, more at ease, and my anxiety is much better. I love it when you are here." It wasn't long after that you told me you guys were moving back to Indy. You said you had gotten a better job offer, but I know it was partially because at the time, I was unraveling emotionally. I've battled with severe anxiety my entire life. I remember being terrified of even the smallest things when I was kid, and I've always over thought everything. You've always been around to talk me down.
I've always known what it was like to lose family. To be expecting them at events and having them be absent because their time was up before you were ready. I always told Casey that if something ever happened to you, that it would be really, really bad. Not just because you were my brother, but because you were my person. I lost the person I expect to see at family gatherings, but I also lost the person I would call at 7 am because some car just cut in front of me and really ticked me off. A phone call like that from one another, wouldn't have surprised us one bit. And we both would have said that person was a jerk. I lost the person I would walk through fire for. The person who would do the same for me. I lost 2 in one. But I also lost the main support system I had for my girls. The girls who had their 5th birthday party on Saturday and instead of having a happy Mom had a sobbing, hiding in the bathroom Mom. A Mom I never wanted to be.
I'm still trying to adjust, and now that the shock has worn off, I feel myself falling into a deep depression. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to talk to anyone. I want to stay in my bubble and let the rest of the world fall away. I know I need my people, but right now, all I want is you.
Sometimes I still look to my side and expect to see you there. Talking to me, playing on your phone, laughing, existing. I miss you more than I could ever put into words. I love you so very much.
I was going through pictures the other day, and I noticed something I hadn't before. In almost every picture that we are in together, we are right beside each other, or close together. Even in photos of us walking, we are usually walking side by side. I have always gravitated toward you. It's always where I've wanted to be.
You were bouncing around the idea of moving back to Indiana when you lived in Ohio. You were at my house at the time, and I told you, "I wish you would come back home. I always feel better when you are around, more at ease, and my anxiety is much better. I love it when you are here." It wasn't long after that you told me you guys were moving back to Indy. You said you had gotten a better job offer, but I know it was partially because at the time, I was unraveling emotionally. I've battled with severe anxiety my entire life. I remember being terrified of even the smallest things when I was kid, and I've always over thought everything. You've always been around to talk me down.
I've always known what it was like to lose family. To be expecting them at events and having them be absent because their time was up before you were ready. I always told Casey that if something ever happened to you, that it would be really, really bad. Not just because you were my brother, but because you were my person. I lost the person I expect to see at family gatherings, but I also lost the person I would call at 7 am because some car just cut in front of me and really ticked me off. A phone call like that from one another, wouldn't have surprised us one bit. And we both would have said that person was a jerk. I lost the person I would walk through fire for. The person who would do the same for me. I lost 2 in one. But I also lost the main support system I had for my girls. The girls who had their 5th birthday party on Saturday and instead of having a happy Mom had a sobbing, hiding in the bathroom Mom. A Mom I never wanted to be.
I'm still trying to adjust, and now that the shock has worn off, I feel myself falling into a deep depression. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to talk to anyone. I want to stay in my bubble and let the rest of the world fall away. I know I need my people, but right now, all I want is you.
Sometimes I still look to my side and expect to see you there. Talking to me, playing on your phone, laughing, existing. I miss you more than I could ever put into words. I love you so very much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)