Skip to main content

Hidden Triggers

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about Charlotte. She is everywhere. I see her in so many things. Most of the time, the thoughts are happy memories but they are often tinged with a bittersweet sadness and longing. 

Around mid-June each year, it starts. For some reason, I'm extra sensitive to different memories or triggers. Some of these make sense. At the end of the school year, as kids are celebrating accomplishments and moving forward in time, I think of Charlotte. She never even made it to Kindergarten. I try to imagine what she would be interested in now, what her summers would look like, who her friends would be. Even with another child who has much to celebrate and keep me occupied, my thoughts fall back to her. 

Bear. Just sayin' hello. 
Other triggers are more mundane. I was at our chiropractor's office the other day for a regular visit and there was Bear, sitting there staring at me from the kid's play area. I hadn't thought about Bear in a while. Roger had found Bear at a yard sale while I was pregnant. It was one of the first toys that he bought just for our "new baby" (whose gender was still unknown) and Bear lived in the crib long before Charlotte ever slept there. We passed Bear along to Dr. Bender's office after Charlotte passed away and I hadn't thought about it in a long time...even though I visit the office about once a month. So there was Bear, looking at me. I didn't cry or get upset, but I just felt this twinge of grief that is difficult to explain. 

Another important reminder for me is her voice. I am so grateful that Roger made audio recordings of Charlotte throughout her short life. It all started when she was an infant and he would have her with him during his radio show at WHAN. This is how the got the nickname CJ the DJ. Later, especially as her tumor grew and the disease progressed, Roger made many recordings of Charlotte telling stories, talking about her favorite things, and even saying things like, "I love you, Mommy." You can hear the differences in her voice across the years, both as she matured from a baby into a toddler, and then as the brain tumor took over her ability to speak clearly. I always have these recordings on my iPod and I frequently have my tunes set to shuffle. Inevitably, I'll get an audio visit from my girl. Most of the time, it's a beautiful reminder that I love to hear. But sometimes it's incredibly painful. I could take them off my iPod but I need to hear them. It is so important to remember her and to keep that memory alive. Our greatest fear is forgetting. 

Charlotte Jennie, July 9, 2005-January 7, 2010
So as July begins and we prepare to honor what would be Charlotte Jennie's 12th birthday, I'm extra sensitive and extra thoughtful of my first born daughter. The triggers that normally wouldn't bother me quite so much could make me much more emotional than usual. I tend to let the waves wash over me for a bit, even if it means I swallow some seawater. Soon enough, the tide will ebb, the seas will calm, and I'll be back to floating. I've still got a life preserver in reach at all times. 

Miss you, Baby Girl. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9.  Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole.  There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them."    I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known.  This
Post a Comment
Read more

The Stages of Grief: COVID Edition

It's 2020. It's almost Christmas. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. In fact, we are experiencing what appears to be an incredible surge that is exerting tremendous pressure on our healthcare and social service system. The headlines are clear: we're not done with this madness and December 31, 2020 will not magically be the "end of it".  Earlier in the year, our family thought about whether we might be able to travel at this time. We thought that maybe the curve would be flat enough that we could take a few days away from home during the Christmas holidays. We realized that the pandemic would still be happening, but with the right protections and with prolific mask usage, we could get a much-needed change of scenery. During what is now (clearly) a delusional thought process, we booked a stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the week of December 19th. Spoiler alert: we canceled the trip almost two weeks ago.  Canceling this trip was not a tragedy. In fact, I
1 comment
Read more

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen.  If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life.  I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into
2 comments
Read more