Grieving

You know, I thought I did pretty good tonight. There was 1/2 an hour or so when I wasn't into interacting with the family (while I was making dinner). Taevy kept asking why my face was so red (trying to hold back tears). But I eventually began to function better.

I have successfully accepted the earthly benefits to not adopting Mabel. Money won't be as tight. I don't have to scrub our walls of all pencil marks or paint the ones that are beyond hope (in anticipation of a social worker). The backyard can be its wild self until I feel like changing that. There are earthly benefits, to be sure. I just would rather focus on eternal ones.

So even though I thought I had done a good job of letting Mabel go tonight, my dreams would suggest otherwise. I know this sounds mellow-dramatic, but it's kind of like how TV plays a mom who has lost a child through miscarriage or another kind of death. The pitiful mother wakes up in the middle of the night calling out to her child.

I have done that over and over in some form since I went to bed tonight (it's 3:22am right now). Eric has a cough, and every time he coughs I think it's someone calling to me. "She needs you." "Mabel." "She's burning." One time I must have been dreaming simply about caring for her in the night. When Eric coughed I leaned over and said, "It's okay Mae-Mae." (as if she was home and comfy and that was a normal thing.'

I finally got up and came in here to distract myself with the computer. I don't want her to call out to me in my sleep again tonight. It's too hard.

Anita