I hate filling out forms. It makes me cry yet I still have to continue with the stupid form.

I hate, hate, hate filling out family forms. 

Spouses, children, relationship to each other. 

While you're at it, go look in your important documents and get their social security card. 

Pick up a death certificate while you're at it. 

This sucks. 

Washington Healthcare finder, I curse you.

REBECCA J GOERTZEL IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF ANTHONY A MANN

REBECCA J GOERTZEL IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF JAAL G MANN

REBECCA J GOERTZEL IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF LIANA S MANN

ANTHONY A MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF REBECCA J GOERTZEL

ANTHONY A MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF JAAL G MANN

ANTHONY A MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF LIANA S MANN

JAAL G MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF REBECCA J GOERTZEL

JAAL G MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF ANTHONY A MANN

JAAL G MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF LIANA S MANN

LIANA S MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF REBECCA J GOERTZEL

LIANA S MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF ANTHONY A MANN

LIANA S MANN IS *      - Select One -     Parent     Legal Guardian     Other Relative     Child     Spouse(including same sex marriage)     Domestic Partner     Cousin     Nephew/Niece     Uncle/Aunt     Unrelated     Grand Child     Sibling     Grand Parent     Step Parent     Step Child    OF JAAL G MANN

to write or not to write

So, today I had some time to write, and instead I dilly-dallied catching up on email and stuff.
I thought about writing on the way to drop off Liana with a couple friends at our babysitting co-op.
I knew I'd have an hour and a half in a cafe with a coffee, to just be an adult.
I cried on the drive as I thought about what I wanted to write about.
Then I find myself here, not writing about Lev.
I looked at some pictures, I got teary eyed.
I felt somehow freer when I decided I would not write a lot.
No book, no new blog, no sharing my thoughts and helping others.
It is too much, too deep.
I understand why no one with a baby and a dead teenager writes blogs or books.
We are too tired.
We are too invested in trying to be okay for our new babies, our new lives.
We cannot sink into the desolation needed to really be in touch with our emotions.
Focusing on the grief makes us want to die, and that's not an option.

So here I sit, not writing.
I am thinking about a dream I had last week that still haunts me.
(I was in high school and everyone was going about their normal lives, and I was also expected to just go on, but my brother (Lev) had died recently and I couldn't do it. I left school and just sat outside in the grass. I felt those same initial emotions, but from the perspective of a sibling. It is heart wrenching. )

I am thinking about the stories I heard in grief group last week.
(One woman whose son's fiance is getting married this week. He died five years ago in an accident and she is still close to her son's fiance and was invited to her wedding. I feel her mixed emotions about being happy for her that her life continues, yet the unbearable pain that her life is not with her son, as it should have been, yet with another man. Another mom and dad just heard from a person who was there soon after their daughter was lit on fire by a crazy person and just now, three years later, heard that she had final words for her parents before she went unconscious, knowing she would die of her burns. Hard stuff to digest, but we carry with us the suffering of each other. Not sure if it lessons our own or not but we are not alone.)

I am thinking about my conversation with Tony last night about regrets.

I am also trying not to think and just to be in the moment (mindful grieving).

I will not write, as I am out of time. I will go and be with Liana, be in the moment. Holding Lev in my heart. Knowing that I still wait for his return, also knowing that it won't happen.

I wish I felt that he was here, instead of just feeling his absence.