longest wait

2 months ago.. I was holding her.

feeling her heartbeat…hard and fast…

Tomorrow 2 months ago that beautiful heart finally succumb…

stopped beating.

The distance between me and her life grows…every time I go to bed another day is added allowing the gap between our time together to grow…but also a day closer to reuniting with her again..

my love/hate relationship with my bed.

Nights I write and I re-connect. ..I also hurt..unexplainable sorrow.

my love/hate relationship with the nights.

I ran this morning. Thought about running the 5k in May…thought about how it will feel to add to the Jennifer Kranz fund at Stanford…I thought about how much she would have loved to help out her doctors. How much she loved them and wanted to make them proud. Her head doc called me last weekend. Just to check in and say she was thinking of her..of us..

These doctors care…that alone made such a difference…They have her cells…the capability to help her make a difference.

It won’t be enough.. no reason will ever be enough. .. but it would make her proud to help them.

We went to our marriage counseling session today … I’m glad we have opted to go this way, taking care of our marriage proactively.. before the pitfalls that seem to befall bereaved couples happens. . We are good. We are solid. A large piece of that we owe to all the financial help we received.. (and his empathetic company) ..that has allowed him to take this time off of work..to be with us…learn how to survive as a family of 5. I thought we would spend time making memories…learning how to be a family of 5 living.. but its much more basic…now all we can focus on is surviving.. hanging on.. barely most times… But we are because we are doing it together. Thank you. Sincerely thank you.

My parents took the boys for an overnight. I knew the time was coming.. that the pain was about to come too hard and too fast to control around them. Today my stomach hurts again.. a discomfort I have only experienced the days immediately following her death. I return so totally to that time. .. mind…body and spirit.

..will the 11th and the 12th of every month be like this for me? Flooding me with memories of those final hours… of saying goodbye to my child in a way I could never have imagined possible…

forever.

We drove to the beach again…spent less than 2 hours there. Just us and baby Charlotte… we walked around and looked at the ocean. We talked.. and remembered and shared. ..mostly during the drive. Near the ocean we were more silent. Observing.

At home we continued to talk about her.. and how much we miss her. We were in our own individual bubbles of shared grief. Tony is deep in the depths of it…realization that this is real has hit..his fog is lifting and there is no mercy. I think I am still in a state of shock and disbelief.. . far different than I thought shock was. I cry .. I sob…I hurt beyond reason. Scarily enough though, I know its a muted emotion .. .I know its still going to get worse.

These times alone we learn so much about each other and from each other. Things I never wanted to know about my husband. ..

the way he sounds when he sobs…the sound of pure agony pouring out of him.. the way his body doubles over.. Experiences husband and wife are not meant to share. This desperate pain should be us for each other many many years down the road.. not now..not together for our daughter.

our firstborn.

Tomorrow my best friend has her second wedding….the original wedding. I’m sorry Fairy. we love you. We will never ever forget the memories of January 4th.

Two photos …beginning and end of a life. Separately by 6 miraculous years.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.. I’m not supposed to be a mom to a dead little girl. I’m not supposed to do this without her.  I keep feeling like I can somehow force this not to be real. Change it all. Wake up from this nightmare.

.. i can’t

As Tony said tonight  — it’s just not fucking fair —

.. its not

and there is not a thing I can do about any of it. I was that kid that would be about to clean my room..but then I was told to do it and would refuse. I have never been able to deal with being forced to do something. .. I became very adept at finding a way out.

.. .not this time though.

This time ..2 months and a few hours from right now I lost complete control. I lost a piece of me. Of my husband. Of my sons and the baby.

We lost her. Jennifer Lynn Kranz.

I will never forget that moment. Her last breath.. her last seconds of life..

for a thousand years I will remember..

She lived. She laughed. She suffered. She was scared.

I held her. I did the best I could in an impossible situation. I am left here wondering if I said the right things.. wondering what it was like for her.

6 yrs old..knowing she was dying.. without understanding of what that means..

confused. trusting.

forever 6 .

Forgive me Jennifer. I wanted to find a way out. I should have prepared you better…but I thought we had time. I didn’t think it would really happen. It hit me today that I truly thought that I would find a way out… the right clinical trial.. to save you.                     save me.

forever broken.

Just like I looked at pictures of Tony last night and grieved for the loss of the spark in his eye…he looked at pictures of our 4yr old and doubted if he would ever smile like that again. ..

wholly. completely. totally. safely

 

I didn’t have the answer. I hope its a yes. .. I desperately fear its a no. That he knows too much cruelty..Innocence ripped away. ..

forever changed.

another thing beyond my control.. beyond my capability to fix. All 4 of my children have lost their childhoods.. one to death and the others from death.

2 months ago.. I was waiting.. I thought for one moment.

I didn’t realize that moment was just the beginning…

beginning of the longest wait …

to see her again.