I feel an invisible force on my foot.. trying to push it down.. put the brakes on this life.. Just make it all stop. . In 4 days I will have been a cancer mom for a whole year. In 4 days.. She will truly be forever 6..

because she won’t be here to turn 7.

no no no no

Today was the one year anniversary of the last full great day.. free day. .. happy day. The day before I picked her up from school and she threw up in her lap.. the day before we took her to the ER and she was admitted. I wanted to do something that symbolized that.. something free and fun. We went to the high school football games tonight, my brother and brother in laws team vs another brothers team.  It was a hour or so drive each way.. nice for me I got to cry with all 3 of my able to sleep children sleeping and on the way home only Jonathan was awake.

Last year when they played each other all the players wore a Love4JLK sticker and our family wore Team Jennifer shirts. We are so changed now.. so completely different. It feels like it was years ago.. it feels like it was all just some dream I had..

So many words choke me now. As we walked onto the campus I started to tell the boys they would be big high schoolers like all these guys one day.. But then I couldn’t. It would feel to forceful like I was taking too much for granted.. to get to have them in high school one day is a privilege I am holding my breath to have happen.

They had a great time tonight. Nicholas was quite popular for his no shirt style! The boys even had a little ice fight after the game on the field. My first thought was to tell them no. It was already hours past bedtime. But then I saw the smiles and realized a few more minutes meant nothing at this point.. So I turned that ‘no into a yes’.

 

My kids were with some of their big cousins.. Charlotte was being held by her godfather so I snapped a quick picture. Another nephew walked over and I almost said.. hey who is your god child? Lets do a picture. . but I stopped myself and realized who it was.. The child that is no longer here.. no longer able to be swooped up for a quick pic..

I didn’t sign up for this. Don’t I get some sort of insurance against this after waiting and fighting so hard to get her. To not just be a mom.. but get to be her mommy?

We are all hurting so much in vastly different ways. Tony.  It is real and pressing and destructive for him right now. There is nothing like seeing and hearing your husbands pain pour out of him.. To have to watch him struggle under the weight of his heartache.. and the intensity of his rage .. Because he can’t change it. Because its real. Her birthday without her.. Its real and its coming.

And he is cruelly un-numb. He went to a friends new house and helped tear up carpet .. another form of what we call man grief. Raw physical release.

I on the other hand have had a backslide in that department. Though my emotions are just right below the surface.. though I cry every time I drive to my gym or Jonathans preschool .. really anytime I am in the car now I cry in that moment of front seat solicitude. I have realized my body is shutting it down. I am numb to it. It all seems un-real. I am back in the fog .. Having a hard time really connecting to the fact that she will not be here when I wake up on the 28th.. I am instead reeling in the one year anniversary of learning she had a cancer called DIPG…. a cancer with no cure.. no viable options..  and no mercy.

That is ripping me apart.

The fact that its already taken her.. that she will not be making any wishes this year.. Its just not penetrating.

I guess maybe its too big for me to even begin to absorb. But my body knows.. my eyes burn and tears fall as I write those words. But my brain shuts it off. I feel like Jonathan looked 8 months ago when we told him sissys body stopped working. When his eyes filled with tears and a look of total confusion over why that was happening.. as his legs forced him to jump into my lap and his arms to wrap around me.. All involuntary mechanisms of his little body.

Tomorrow we head out of town. Sacramento. The place where she was born. The place that I first earned the greatest name on this earth.. Mommy. We are not doing anything fancy, just fun easy unplanned kids stuff .. really anywhere but here,  Tony and I looked at each other as we talked about the trip.. He said I hope its fun.. well not fun. but just not awful.

It will be fun.

For them because of her.

All you went through..

everything you endured.

It will be fun.

For them.. because of you

my Jennifer.

…until there is a cure..