Sometimes a girl just needs her blog

I keep saying that I need to get back to this, but I never seem to make it happen. Life is busy. Part of it is the glorified busy. So much time wasted on FB (I am becoming more and more aware of that), too much time spent buzzed on a glass of wine that completely depletes my motivation to do anything but sit down and snuggle with hubby & the kids. Then there's the endless errands, running the kids to all of their activities and playdates, making meals, folding laundry.... it never ends...

...until it does, I guess.

Today, someone I care for very much lost her battle with cancer, and I feel I have no where to turn but here. Not so much to talk about my relationship with her, but because I need to share BG's response about her death. It needs to be recorded somewhere as a part of her history.

Anyone who was following along on this blog back in the day would still think of BG as a baby. Today she is four and three quarters. Full of piss and vinegar. A comedienne. Wild. Empathetic beyond belief. Loving. So very, very loving. She is attached to everyone she knows.

Recently my sweet BG has been obsessed with death. Making references to when daddy dies when she is a grown up. Telling me she's happy I'm not dead. Talking about Kitty's death a year ago and how much she misses him (although her only couple of interactions with him resulted in scratches!), etc.

Today her beloved paternal grandmother passed away. I received the news via text message from XH just as I was pulling into the driveway after picking up the kids from playdates. I brought them inside and told them of their grandmother's passing. BB just snuggled me. He is an internalizer. BG started to whimper, said she was so sad that she would never see her again, then wandered over to her new keyboard and started making music. I tried to talk to BB about it some more since BG wasn't interested, but it was pretty much a one-sided conversation, so I let it go, thinking they weren't overly affected.

Then bedtime happened. I spent over 45 minutes consoling a broken-hearted four year old. She made so many amazing statements... I had no idea she had such a firm grasp on life and death.

She wanted to know if Grammy knew she was dying. And I explained that yes, she did, but she didn't want the kids to know so they wouldn't worry about her. (I disagreed with this, but I was trying to respect her wishes. After tonight, I completely regret this and wish I had followed my gut.) BG became very angry that no one told her Grammy was dying. She is angry that she didn't get to say goodbye. She is heartbroken that she will never see her Grammy again because her Grammy was "always so very nice to me." She repeated those words over and over again. She cried because, "I already have to work hard to remember her." She asked to look at pictures of her, so we brought up her Grammy's FB account on my phone, and went through all of the pictures we had tagged her in over the past six years. She asked me if I could send all of those pictures to her iPod so that she could look at them whenever she wanted to, so that she could remember Grammy.

She talked about spending Christmas with Grammy. I asked if she got any snuggles or hugs from Grammy. She said just one. (I am sure there were others.) I asked when she received that hug. "It was right after I opened my Lala Loopsie dolls. Er, no, it was right after I opened my clothes. I was so excited and I told her, 'You are the best grammy in the whole wide world.' and she hugged me." Then she started talking about Christmas dinner, and how her uncle and his friend prepared dinner, and how delicious it was. Then the tears started again, because she couldn't remember whether Grammy ate any of the dinner. That was the point where she realized that memories fade and she was already working hard to remember. That we all forget things... those memories we treasure so much.

I talked to her about remembering the feeling she had when she was with her Grammy. About how much Grammy loved her, and how much she loves her in return. We talked about how love lasts forever, whether the person is still with us physically or not.

This was the first time that she has ever cried so hard and so long that she wasn't able to stop crying. "I can't stop crying mom. I just keep crying and crying."

It all seems so heavy for a four year old.

Tonight I am grieving for the loss of a beautiful life... someone who has done so much to help me out in my own life. And I am grieving even more for my daughter's broken heart. I hope that we are able to help her find peace, and help her keep her sweet Grammy's memory alive for the rest of her life.