The Fall

Yesterday probably marked the hardest day without Sky since the day of her burial. We presented 6 graduating seniors with Skylar’s scholarship awards. To say that I was exhausted at the end of the ceremony is an understatement. I left there feeling like I had just run a marathon.  Sitting through hours of sad “memorial” scholarships is exhausting in itself, but being there to speak to an auditorium full of Sky’s friends and classmates was unreal.

I truly did not believe that I would be able to get through the presentation and honestly I almost didn’t. I felt Sky nudging me to get up there and speak from the heart and make her proud. I can’t even put into words what it felt like to stand on a stage and look out into an audience filled with Juniors and Seniors and not see Sky and Sophie’s faces staring back at me. Isn’t this an experience that “other” people go through….not me, not my family.

My heart was so full to give Sky’s best friends a little piece of her to send them off to college and it warmed my soul to hug them all and see them smile and I know we all felt her there….but once again I walk away empty handed, without my baby next to me. Just her memory and the love I have for her is all I have to cling too. It’s simply not enough.

I want to live my life every day to the fullest because Skylar no longer can… I want to do the things that she didn’t get to do and be the person I knew she would have grown to be….but my honest feeling most days is just one of complete exhaustion and praying that this world we live in is nearing the end. This cruel and broken world is just too much to bear most days without those 3 extra smiling faces walking through my door.

I heard an analogy the other day from a woman who lost her teenage daughter to murder and it touched me to the core. She explained being on a roller coaster and the adrenaline building as you climb the hill “click, click, click click…..” and just as you get to the top and start to fall you instinctively reach for the bar and your stomach drops…..on our roller coaster we never find the bar, we keep reaching but it’s not there and the stomach drop never ends. There is no plateau, it is just constant falling with no relief. That was so powerful to me because it is exactly how I feel 24 hours a day 7 days a week…I can’t seem to catch my breath.

I had a friend ask me recently if I live day by day. I started to say yes and then caught myself and said, actually I live  breath by breath. I can be seemingly okay for a few hours and then boom a trigger comes and I’m knocked 4 steps back. I think it’s safe to say that I can expect to feel this way for the long haul and I’m okay with that. I’ve lost a huge chunk of myself and it’s not something that will ever heal,  I will just simply learn to breathe a little easier in time. I hope. I pray.

Yesterday was the senior class of 2013 last day of school…graduation is this Saturday and the void that is in my heart and soul is probably visible to the naked eye. My heart breaks as much for my family as it does for Sophie and Julianna’s family.  Knowing that Sophie should be excepting her diploma this weekend and Sky should be sitting in the audience cheering her on (and seething with jealousy that she still has another year to go)  is enough to drop me to my knees. I was warned that the year of “firsts” would be a test of faith and a battle for strength.. I won’t argue with that warning.

“The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell”  (Imagine Dragons)

My DAILY reminder:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. Romans 8:18

I love you more sweet angels……..