Imagine you are me. You marry the love of your life. You buy a cute house in a nice neighborhood with a big yard built for a family. You give birth to a beautiful, WANTED little girl. You live a happy life but after struggling through her cancer diagnosis, you are FINALLY okay. You are FINALLY feeling strong enough to not be scared anymore. You see hope and light at the end of a very long tunnel and you promise to yourself, the love of your life and that beautiful, wanted, now fought-for and CHERISHED little girl that you will start living. Really, really living. You will get back to saying yes as often as you can. Life will be fun and happy again. You will date your husband again without fear or guilt. You will spend time with friends and other families and maybe let in a little more love to your family and add another baby. You will let your little girl do anything and everything she wants to do to experience life.
And then, in one crippling day, after 11 days of desperately trying NOT to be afraid of “what ifs” again, its all over. Everything you ever wanted in life, EVER, GONE in a flash. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know where to turn. I have everyone and no one to talk to. I can’t seem to find the person I can truly release it all with because why? No one can understand. No one can talk me out of how I feel or say anything to really help. So…I cry to myself. All. Day. Long. I sob, cry, dry heave, pull my hair out and wish I could just find her. I search in books for answers. Search her face in pictures and her voice in videos for some clue that she is as connected to me as I am to her. Scour websites for hope. Read blogs for answers. Search for myself in the mirror and find no one. I have more support around me now than I’ve ever had in my life and yet I feel so completely alone.
So I ask you. Imagine you were me. What would you do? How do you live? know you can’t answer. I wouldn’t want you to know this. But the trouble is, I don’t want to know it either. But I don’t have a choice.
Kate, mommy loves you. Best friends forever, okay? I promise.