Dear Micah,
I want to write you all the time, but I find myself sitting here with nothing to say. The only thing that comes to mind is how much I miss you….
Tonight, I was forced to really think about you though, and the time that you died. I hated doing it. I usually save it for anniversaries or what not. I didn’t get that choice tonight. So fuck. Let us reminisce, shall we? I know you were there, the day you died and I know you know what happened. I wasn’t. No one was. You laid in that same spot for two days until I came to you. I saw you. I felt you. I screamed when that man pulled me away from you. He didn’t know what I knew; if I could just keep one hand on you, one finger, one last grip on your Gap jeans… you wouldn’t really be dead. He carried me away from you. I fought him the entire way. I have to ask though. Why? Why did you allow me to be there? Why did God? Maybe he doesn’t exist? I know you did, and I know you still do, so I have faith that he does too. Whoever he or she or it, really is. There was a reason for that. There was a reason I had to be there. And that is why this story became my life.
I love my story, BTW. I was telling it to your niece tonight. I had no choice. I was siting on the patio when I found out that she knew that the day I saw you for the last time was also her 2nd birthday. I’d vowed to never tell her. I hated tonight. Seeing the pain in her face when tears rolled down mine, telling that story about birthday balloons and fire trucks and a really scary coroner vans with a stretcher and an empty blue bag, meant for your beautiful body. God, I love you. Saying goodbye that day was gross. I’m so glad that there is a God out there who coordinates this shit. Yay you, God-sizzle. Dick.
I told my baby girl about how it was her birthday, and how I was excited for it. But I also told her how happy you were about it. I know more than anything in this world that you loved Teeny more than anyone else in your life. So why her birthday??? I used to wonder. I don’t anymore. I know that there are some things that I will never have the answers to. Chalk it up to a point in the loss column I guess. I guess I accepted that had it not been her birthday that I wouldn’t have felt an urgency to get to you, and you would have spent the whole weekend on that bathroom floor, rotting some more.
The pain that I have lived through since the last time I saw you have been incredible. There have been some days that I will never forget and some that I wish that I could. I remember feeling you everywhere those first few days. I remember not crying when I found out you were dead. I had seen you. I knew there was no way that the condition of your body was capable of holding your huge soul. I knew that piddley person on the floor was not you. But for some reason, I needed the sheriff to say the words. I asked her repeatedly if you were dead. I oddly, not sure why since I had seen your face, asked her if you had shot yourself. I don’t know why. I asked her again and again. She said that you “expired”, like cheese. I still hate cheese. I have to force myself to eat it, which is dumb because cheese is delicious. But I equate it to your corpse. She finally said that you were dead, and I immediately told her to move the fucking fire truck that was parked behind my truck.
I remember when you came to the hospital when Lucah was born. You sat on my bed. The pressure on my legs woke me up, but there was no one there. I looked at my legs and knew I wasn’t dreaming. You sat next to me and looked her over, while she slept in her little plastic bed. Thank you for her. She is a joy to be around and I know that without her, I wouldn’t have made it through those first few months without you. The silence of my life almost killed me. And I had a toddler. You must have been a noisy neighbor. You used to walk into my house life and I’ll always remember how you didn’t knock and how you always seemed to think that my kid was supposed to be awake when you were, since you would wake her up to play with her, even if I had just gotten her down for a nap. I would give anything to have a crabby baby because of you again. Now the kids are just crabby because they went to bed too late. Dammit. I miss you.
I remember the first Christmas after you were dead. I cried. I don’t recall much more, other than standing in the dining room of Dad and Mom’s house, looking at your pictures and sobbing with Kail by my side. Have you seen him lately? Whowza. He’s so handsome. I like to think that the torment you and I put him through made him strong enough to conquer the world. He’s as funny as you were, in his own way. He doesn’t command attention the way that you did, but he’s just as witty and cool as you were. He took over your role as my big brother, in a way. I don’t see him as younger anymore. I don’t know if that’s by choice, but he seems to have it together more than I do, so I go with it. I’ve always needed a guide.
I think the best thing about your death has been the PTSD. I used to have flashbacks of when I saw you last. I didn’t remember all of the details of that day for 2 years. I blacked out your funeral even. It was nice to have so many people re-tell me the story so that I could feel like I was there again. I used to hate my flashbacks, but now that I understand them, I use them to be a better person.
I don’t think many people understand PTSD or what a flashback is like. Initially they were always you. I could handle those ones. It was when they became the kids that I lost my shit. I remember sitting with the kids outside of a tall building in down town Denver and I was looking at a balcony and thinking about what it would be like to live there with the kids and how bad it would suck to have to walk all the way downstairs if the dog had to pee. I saw the man who was standing on the balcony, about 15 stories up, and I saw him pick up Aubrey and throw her over the ledge. She was standing next to me. This was impossible. But I could see her fall to her death. It took my breath away and no one understood why I was suddenly kneeling on the concrete vomiting. Of course I was. I just watched my 4 year old’s skull slam into the curb. That wasn’t the worst one. I have had so many more that I’ve thought I should be in a hospital in a snug strappy jacket. Even still. They’ve become a part of who I am and I allow those dark creepy thoughts to guide me.
In the 8 years sine your death, I’ve learned to cope with my PTSD. I know it will not go away. I know I will live with it forever. I know the world will not understand it. I know that I will always be a freak in my own little world since no one gets what it looks like to be me. Last month we were all going to a festival in Flag. I was excited but then those fucking dark creepies got to me again. I was at work, thinking about the trip, when I saw the truck we were all in fly off the road. I saw bodies everywhere. I saw my boyfriend and Kail’s girlfriend and someone I didn’t know die on the road. I called Kail later that day to say I would stay sober and drive. I can’t control my thoughts, but I could do everything I knew how to make sure I protected them on that trip. I don’t think my flashbacks are always a curse. They make me be more careful because I don’t want them to come true.
I didn’t tell Aubrey all that tonight. She can have some secrets still. I never wanted her to wake up on her birthday and know it was a day that our family changed forever. I told her that the days that hurt were the ones that reminded us that you stopped living. Like when you don’t have a birthday anymore, when we don’t get to call you or buy you gifts. Or when you are missing from weddings when we all know you would have been a blast to be with. Those days suck. Not her birthday. That was the best day ever.
I know why I had to find you. I know that it as because if I didn’t, if I got the news the way everyone else did, I would have looked for you for the rest of my life. I would have wished it weren’t true. I would have looked for you to walk through the door every time. I was given the gift of an end to your life. No one else was. And I think I know why it had to be on her birthday. It was a blessing in disguise. Every year, I’m so busy planning her birthday that it’s hard to take time to think about where I was that day. I was having her, not being thrown over your patio wall by a maintenance man. Not calling Mom to tell her you were dead. Not calling Ali or Mindy or Becca to tell them you were dead. I’ll never forgive the person who told Aubrey my secret. Fucking asshole. They pail in comparison to my daughter, or you.
Re-living your death, again, was atrocious. But I think sometimes I need to let my mind open back up to it to see if I still bleed. I know I will never get over you. I know I will always miss you. I know I will always wonder where you are at any given moment. I know you are always going to be the greatest adventure of my life. You made me take chances. You made a better mother. I don’t take life for granted anymore. I don’t worry about shit I can’t change. I know I don’t have a long time here. I want to spend it living and I want that to be what my little girl learns. I want her to see her birthday as a new year to set goals and have fun. And so far, she’s doing it. Let’s just hope that in the coming years, she doesn’t change that.