My Jessie Journal:: Hi Sweet Pea, it’s daddy=). It’s been a tough week in so many ways as I await your 17th birthday on 4/8. I feel like my life is still climbing out of this massive devastating earthquake that hit our lives on March 3, 2011. There are actually some similarities to the big earthquakes we get here in California and being told your child has cancer and there is nothing the doctors can do to cure it.
When the big earthquakes hit…People experience panic, fear and worry. They hold on to their loved ones and possessions the best they can. Then once the dust settles some have to experience loss, grief, anxiety and more worry. Some even have to try to “rebuild” their lives day by day.
That is how I feel…Having to see you fight like heck, do whatever they told you, be in massive pain, loose your hair, your smile, your ability to walk/talk, watch you take your last breath and have to place you on a gurney…the Richter scale isn’t big enough to measure that type of emotional earthquake. While all of this was happening all I wanted to do was protect you, hold you, and assure you….it was going to be ok!
I did everything I could…I asked everyone I knew to pray for you. I love this picture for so many reasons…I remember holding your head as tight as I could and pleading in my mind…”Please heal Jessie”. As I always told you, we will always pray…but must realize that sometimes our prayers don’t get answered the way we want them.
The emotional dust is finally starting to settle and I’m rebuilding my life day by day. There are no books to read, webinars to watch or plans to follow. Just like each earthquake is unique…grief is unique too. One of the challenging things is there are these unpredictable tremors that pop-up and cause the fissures in my soul to wobble, which end up releasing giant plumes of joy and pain in my heart at the same time.
Rest assured Jess, I’m holding on to “HOPE” with every ounce of strength I have as I keep walking this most interesting journey. I truly thought being beaten by my drunk dad as a little boy was the worst I was going to have to endure…I would take thousands of welts and bruises to have you back Jess.
Thinking of you today…as the fissures in my soul wobble.
xoxo,
daddy
