far from understanding

Time passes, yet I rarely feel like I have come any closer to any type of understanding.
I still wonder if it's true.
I still hold hope for a different outcome in my heart.
I then feel destroyed again and again when the truth that Lev is dead hits me again and again and again.
I make it through the days fine, walking within the high walls I have built to separate my work life from my real life.

I am still seeing a counselor every couple weeks. When I said I expected that by now I would have a deeper understanding or something would somehow be different, she asked me how long I thought it should take to completely re-work your perception of your past, present, and future? Put like that, I do expect it to take a very long time to come to any sort of peace with going on without Lev.

I miss him so deeply. I miss his annoying habits, like complaining about something I put in our dinner, or wearing dirty clothes and not wanting to change. I miss the arguing as much as I miss the silliness and the laughter. Lev was the happiest person I know, and one of the angriest, too. I find little peace in the idea that he had a nice life. It just makes me want more for him. The emotion that I struggle with the most is the helplessness of that morning. I wanted to help him so badly, yet was unable. I feel like a trauma victim, and I guess I am. It is hard to deal with the absence and the trauma of those scenes at the same time.

We called the coroner today. They were actually cordial, and said that they would have results for us next week. I couldn't get any more information out of them, like what test they are still waiting on. In some ways, I don't even want to know. It's hard enough already, and this might make it harder. Or maybe it will help us to understand.
We'll let all you blog readers know what we find out.

Rebecca

The fragility of happiness

Last night a friend showed me a photo on her camera of Rebecca and I. Rebecca was laughing with joy at something, a really beautiful shot. I asked her if it was taken before July. Turns out she had kept the photo on the camera for over a year because she liked it so much. That was a happier time.

They say the loss of a child is hard on a sibling, because they have lost part of their parents as well, the happy part. I now see that I have lost part of Rebecca and she has lost part of me. I deeply miss her joyful spirit, her warm, glowing smile. I hope we can get it back one day.

Don't misunderstand me. I still have happy moments, I still smile and laugh. But it feels so much thinner than before, so fragile. Like there is nothing underneath it. When before it was so deep, a profound contentment. Finding that kind of peace and serenity again is going to be a long journey.