Jealousy

Some days are easier than others. Some days I can be overwhelmingly happy for the people in my life and on Facebook, who have 2 siblings, both their parents, or maybe at least a grandparent left. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for me. I see articles being posted about how great it is to have grandparents living close by for your kids, or how your brother is always there for you, and I'm irrationally angry. I am not angry at you, I'm angry at my situation. I'm angry at the life that I've been given, the hand I've been dealt.

Growing up, I had a set of grandparents who lived very far away, but we spent every summer there and they were very active in our lives. I had 2 sets of grandparents who lived within 15 minutes of where I grew up. I had more cousins, and uncles/aunts than most people I knew.

People grow up and they go their own ways, and that part I understand. But in a span of 5 years, I lost 3 of the grandparents who lived closest to me. I lost my Father when I was 13 years old. He lost his battle with depression and it ultimately ended his life. It was a terrible and miserable time for me, and our family. It's one of those things that you don't know how to get through but one day you're just looking back at it all finally on the other side of a very dark tunnel. So by the very young age of 22, I had lost my 3 grandparents, and a parent. I wish that my unfortunate times stopped there.

Even with all that loss, I still felt like I was doing okay. I felt like I could get through anything life threw at me, because I had my brother. He made it so I never felt like I was missing anything. The amount of love he gave me was so incredibly big that I felt like I would be okay. Then I awoke one morning, to the devastating news that he had been murdered. Not even 8 months later, the only grandparent we had left, lost her battle to cancer.

My Mother spends at least 8 months out of the year 16 hours away. So while it's better when she's home, that isn't always the case. Somedays, I've never felt so alone in my life. No, I'm not really alone, I have an amazing husband and 4 awesome kids, but it isn't the same thing. It still feels hard, existing without the family you came from. Those people who know your stories, who know what you were like when you were a kid. The people who remember that you had crazy blonde hair and freckles during the summer time.

I think what's even harder for me, is knowing my kids won't have family around while they grow up. I just hope that we can love them big enough, like my brother loved me, that they never feel like they are missing anything. We've been fortunate enough to have friends we consider family in their lives. I can't even begin to explain how grateful we are to have them around. I hope everyday that it helps fill in the gaps with their unwavering love and support.

So yes, some days I'm going to be a little angry when I see those people and things you get to experience and have for a lot longer than me. I try very hard to be insanely happy for you and smile with you that you are able to have those things. But sometimes, jealousy rears its ugly head and makes me feel sorry for myself, and my kids, and all that we are missing out on. I'll apologize again and again for the way I feel, but please understand, I would give anything to be able to feel differently, to have the privileges that allowed me that.

Love each other, with all your heart, with everything you have, and appreciate every moment. 💗

My Busy Head

Kobi,

A few people have asked me why I started working again. It's not like we hadn't already been living on one income for years and managed, or that I didn't have anything going on. With 4 kids, and school, life was already pretty busy. However, it didn't keep my head busy enough. When I was done with school there was still a little bit of down time mentally. Or I should say, time to dwell on everything that has happened over the past 16 months.

It's easy to think about the trauma and the horribleness of it all when I'm folding laundry or loading a dishwasher. It's a lot harder to think about those things when I'm working with patients or learning.  Too often, my mind still goes to that place where I think about you bleeding out behind your building, or that you are laying in a coffin where I'll never be able to see or touch you ever again. Way too often my mind is still in that place where I can't see past what has happened to you to even get through the day without breaking down. I still feel that weight in the evenings when I would spend hours on the phone with you, and now, it's just filled with my own thoughts and things I have to do and work through without your guidance.

Thankfully, the past few weeks since working has helped give me some things to focus on outside of that. No, it hasn't been perfect, and honestly it's been a really tough few weeks getting into a schedule, trying to succeed in my classes still and helping the girls adjust to our new found crazy. It's all been hard. But it's been hard in a very different way. Stressful? Absolutely! But compared to what I've been through, manageable.

And while it's helped, right now, I'm feeling the weight of the world, the weight of your loss. My chest hurts, I feel like I might be sick and I want to do anything to stop the pain. I want to hear your voice again. Hear you laugh again. Hear you tell me you love me again. And I think more than anything right now, I need to hear you say, "Breathe with me. You've got this. You can do this!"


I miss and love you so very much, best friend.

Love always,

Sis

2 Very Unmerry Birthdays

Kobi,

This is the first time I’ve been sober for one of these. On August 14th of last year, I was drunk. On May 1st, of this year, I was drunk. This year, life is hurrying on with you. Everyone has their places to be. I can’t drink because I have to drive and I have no driver this year. I have children to get up at 5 am and get off to school. I have people relying on me. And even on the days I want to check out and just wallow in my grief, I’m held responsible for my kids.

How can you be gone when you are suppose to be celebrating your 33rd birthday? How can this be our life now?

Tonight, I’m painfully aware of how sober I am. And before you worry, I don’t have a drinking problem, I never have. In fact, a glass of wine will make me unable to walk a straight line, I’ve just had a horrible time coping with all of this. Alcohol made it a little easier. I’m suddenly sympathetic to every addict, to every broken human being just looking for a way to get through the black. I’m currently in the process of lowering the dosage on my medication. I’m trying to find my new normal and survive it. Whatever that is. I don’t like it. I don’t even want it. But I’ve never been the girl who stops riding her bike just because she fell down. I always get back up again. 

So my training wheels are coming off, and I have to learn how to balance this thing without you there, ready to catch me. It’s a scary thing, to be here without you. Who’s going to carry me when I fall down and skin my knee? Who’s going to love me through it? All of it? Some how, I know it will still be you. 

Love you and I’m missing you always. 

Still

Kobi,

This evening I sat on the floor, put my hand across your written words on my arm, tilted my head forward, and pretended you were sitting right there with me. Your head against mine, your hand in mine, the world still and quiet. I wanted to feel something, anything, that would tell me you are still here. I wanted to feel weight against my forehead, movement in my hand, the world spin. I really just needed that tonight. But my head was cold and unaccompanied, my hand empty, and my world, still as ever.

I feel you here with me all the time. But then I wonder if it's just my head trying to make my heart believe it. I wonder if that feeling in my stomach isn't your presence in my life, but in fact your absence. My grief plays with my head. It tries desperately to make sense of this life without you. There are times in your life where you are under an umbrella in the sun, and other times where you are in such a darkness that you need a flash light to see just a foot in front of your face. My head has no sun at the moment. It's rainy and dark. My family and friends are like stars in the sky shining down on me, but it feels so hard to reach them. So hard to explain the storm that's raging on behind my calm exterior.

No one knows just how much you meant to me, and I don't even know how to begin to describe it. You were my person. You could calm me like no one else. You were my perfect match in a friend and a sibling. You were everything to me and so much more. I love you with all that I am, and I miss you more every single day.

Sis

365 days

Kobi,

I couldn't write this on the actual 1 year anniversary. It was too hard, and I simply didn't have the words. And as you know, me not having the words is rather extraordinary. I wrote for the school paper in high school, and I've been writing poetry and song lyrics since I was old enough to read and write. A lack of words has never been an issue for me. But I didn't know how to express the pain, sadness, the complete heartbreak I have been experiencing for over a year now. Mostly, because there aren't enough words in our dictionary to even begin to scratch the surface.

It isn't just the day you died that breaks my heart, it's the day I found out that we was just me. It was the day your body was picked apart piece by piece and everything that made you who you were was removed, and we went into that awful room and ID'd your body. It's the day we went to talk to the detective about what happened to you and went to your apartment to pick out the clothes you would spend forever in. The day we made your funeral arrangements and picked out your casket. The day we talked to the pastor and told him how incredibly important you were to us so he could get everything just perfect when we held your services. It's the day I first saw you in your casket, and I freaked out sobbing and screaming before I went into shock and didn't speak for a half an hour. It's the day we laid you to rest, when I said goodbye to you for the last time. And it's the moment, when everyone else was leaving, I stepped up to your coffin, the wind blew really hard, and I threw myself on top of your closed casket, sobbing, knowing I'd never be that close to you again. I left my kiss mark, and my tears over where your face was, and I didn't take my eyes off your beautiful green box until I couldn't see it in my rearview anymore.

Every day since those 8 days has been hard too. Every time I missed you so much that the person I needed to get me through my grief was in fact you. Every time the girls did something adorable and I went to call you to tell you all about it. Every birthday party you missed and I imagined you right there smiling with pride. All the times I replayed your final moments like a broken record in my head.   Every moment of every day that I have thought about you. All the tears, all the anger, every ounce of strength it has taken me to keep my feet moving forward. And they didn't move very far forward until I made the decision that I was ready to reenroll in school just a couple weeks ago.

I thought it would feel good, exciting to get back to what I know, what I loved, and it did, but it also felt terrifying, and so incredibly devastating to be doing it all without you. To be moving past the spot where my life was frozen, frozen close to where you stopped existing. I imagined your face when you watched me walk across the stage, your beaming smile and loud cheering. Your love, pride and unwavering support. It nearly broke what was left of me. I don't want to go forward without you. I shouldn't have to go forward without you. They gave me no choice. They gave you no chance. They took your life, and forever altered mine.

The loneliness of this life without you is the worst. I isolate myself from those who love me, and sometimes have to force myself to communicate so I don't lose them too. No one else remembers the things we did as kids, no one else knows the ins and outs of our crazy family, no one else knows everything about me, and I truly don't think anyone will ever love me as much as you loved me. Every night, I take a moment before I turn on my tv and try to get comfortable, I sit and think about all the things I wish I could say to you, all the details about my day I would tell you, and all the things you might have done that day. I imagine your laugh, your venting, and more than anything, I imagine your "I love you." And that silence in that moment, it's haunting.

Everyone thinks that after I've hit a certain period of time, that I'm suppose to be fine, moving on, functioning without pause. But I don't want to move on. Even if I could, I don't want to. I'll move forward, but I'm not going to move on. I'd rather drag that weight around, to be reminded of you in every moment, than to ever put it down and walk away. It's harder to move with that extra weight, that incredibly painful, heavy weight, but I won't stop fighting for you, missing you and loving you in every single moment of every single day.

I haven't reached a point in my grief where I'm not actively grieving every day. Most days I still shed tears, most days I still stare off and think about where you are right now. I still read the news stories, check your Facebook to be reminded by the "Remembering Kobi Lee Walden," that you aren't going to have posted anything. I still try to call you. I still need you, and love you, and miss you an infinite amount. My bad days still outweigh my good, and I'm still struggling to get through them. I'm angry most of the time, at everything and everyone. I don't know how long until I'm semi-normal again, but I hope that the people I love are understanding and patient enough to love me through it all. Because living without you is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and no length of time is going to make that any better.

A year ago today, I placed a huge chunk of my heart into the ground, my only sibling, my forever best friend. That still feels so impossible, like it couldn't be true. And I still don't know how it is. I still catch myself thinking of you in the present tense, because you will always be present to me. I love you more than I can express in any amount of words. Missing you always.

Sis

Winter is Coming

Kobi,

I still feel this way, often. I have to remind myself, that there are people in this world you may want to be suffering; Our immediate family who didn't show up to your funeral because it was "too hard" and never bothered to call to check on me, the person who disgraced you and did you wrong in your death, the person who killed you and those who aren't talking, and anyone who hurts me, because you are my protective big brother like that. I do know, however, that I am not one of those people. I know that you loved me more than anything. I know, not because I'm arrogant, but because you told me, and I learned in your passing, you told and showed others your love for me too. You want me to continue to laugh and play with my girls. You want me to love and be loved. You want me to be successful and do the things you believed I was meant to do. You want me to be me, the me you loved, the me you still hope I'll be, the me that disappeared the day you died. The more I try to bring that person back out, the more I feel that she will never return. And I'm sorry, if I can't ever find her again.

I have felt so physically ill this week, and I thought for sure I had some kind of bug, but every time I think about what's coming up, the more I feel my stomach turn, feel my mouth fill, my head hurt, and my whole body start to shake. I felt this way for months after you died. And that pit in my stomach has been there every day since. My fingers shook every time I dealt with something on my phone in regards to you and your passing, and again, my thumbs can barely steady long enough to send a text. I feel like I did right after you died. I feel faint, sick and like I'm going to burst into tears at any given moment. I feel like I can't breathe. And to make matters worse, I tried to call you last night. I wanted to tell you how stressed I was. I wanted to talk to you for hours about the girls and all the silly things they have done or said. I just want to talk to you. So freaking badly I can almost hear your voice.  I keep thinking about what they did to you, how you felt, what you saw and my chest feels like it's going to explode. I know what's coming, and I'm trying hard to prepare myself for it. But there's no preparing for the anniversary of my world blowing up. I love you, so much, Bubby. Stay close please. I miss you.

Sis

Grandma

Kobi,

I'm missing Grandma a lot tonight, but that of course also means that I'm missing you. I can't believe Grandma is gone now. Yours was sudden and unexpected, but hers was so drawn out that it almost seemed like maybe it would just never happen. We watched her fade away slowly, and I held onto her hand as much as I could, remembering every detail of her face. When I told her I wasn't ready for her to go, she told me it was time for her to be with you. She said, "Kobi needs me." And as much as I wanted her here for myself, I knew it was true. Knowing she is there with you is almost a peaceful feeling. I told her to tell you that I love you and that I miss you. Not that I haven't told you these things every single day since you have been gone, but in case you can't hear me, I wanted to be sure. I wrote Grandma this letter last year shortly before you passed, and I never got to share it with you.

  "I don't want to upset you, by any means, but I did just want to take a moment to let you know how much you mean to me. You have always been an anchor point for me in my life. Talking with you either on the phone, or just sitting down with you and having a conversation has always helped bring everything into focus. I loved when I got the opportunity to sneak over without the kids and I got to just sit and talk with you by myself. I enjoyed that so very much.          

        You read me like a book. You truly notice me. You know when I'm upset, stressed and you also notice when I'm happy. You know me better than I think anyone does. You even noticed when I was missing from a room as a child and you would always come find me and make sure I was okay. You always knew what to say in those moments to help me face the world again. In the storm that was my childhood, you were always my calm and steady.

        I remember after my Dad died and I was outside by myself crying. You noticed me, and you came out to talk to me and held me while I cried. I have never forgotten that. You let me stay with you and you let me sleep in the big bed where we talked. You were truly there for me. I  don't think I would have made it through without you. That was such an awful time in my life, but you supporting me through it all made it livable and I've always cherished that one on one time that I had with you. You also always gave me room to talk about my father. You never shied away from a conversation about him and sometimes in that moment, all I needed was to hear those memories. You always offered them. 

     When Dad did pass, most of his family went with him. You stuck around always. You and Pepa never backed away from us. Even when they wanted nothing to do with us and didn't invite us to our own Mema's funeral you took us to dinner after her funeral. Though we were hurting, you made us feel welcome and loved at a time we were feeling abandoned and unwanted. We've always been grateful for that. 

       You and Pepa have always been there for us. It didn't matter when Kobi came out, or I was pregnant and barely out of high school, or when I got divorced. We were terrified to tell you guys, but it never mattered to you. You loved us any way. You have showed us what true unconditional love is. I modeled Casey after Pepa and the kind, good, hard working man that he was. I hope one day I can be half the mother and woman that you are. But most of all, I hope that I made you guys proud. I wouldn't be the Mother or the person that I am if it wasn't for you. You were there in some of my most pivotal moments inspiring me to be better, and showing me the support that I needed. In all of the hardest parts of my life, you were there giving me guidance, helping me through. I don't know what I will do without you. 

      I am proud of you. I always tell people how smart, loving and funny my Grandma is. I have unfortunately known what it's like to have awful grandparents who had the ability to simply walk out of my life and not care to know how I'm doing. But I have also had the great privilege of having amazing, loving, supporting grandparents who I could not be more proud to have as my own. Thank you for that. Thank you for always noticing me, even when no one else did. I can't imagine my world without you in it. 

I love you very much"

I wanted her to know how much she meant to me before she passed. She called me some time later and told me how very proud she was of me, who I am, and the life that I've created. She told me that she knew I was going to be an incredible nurse and that I was going to change lives with my compassion. To say that the two of you have helped make me who I am, wouldn't even scratch the surface. When Dad died, it took a village to raise me and pull me through it, but you all rose to the challenge. I'm so grateful to have been raised by the most amazing people. I wouldn't be here without you, Grandma, and Mom. Give my love to Grandma, Pepa, Mema, Poppy, our Uncles, and Dad. But just for the record, I love you the most and I miss you so much.

Sis