Disappointment

Mostly since Laurel and the girls died my memories of them have come from frozen pictures of their facial expressions. Looks, postures, gestures that were uniquely them. But the past few days, when I think of them, Laurel especially, I’m remembering conversations she and I had. Mostly the ones we had right before the accident. What we talked about the last time I saw her and the girls. But also, conversations we had when I was chin deep in grief over my Dad. Those memories are double whammies because I can see the expressions cross her face as well as hear her voice as responded to my changing emotions and experience.

And while it’s unbelievably painful to remember these things and see her brilliant face in my mind all the time, it is also serving to defuse some of the anger. And it’s also making me realize that while I’ve been taking this process head on with Laurel, I haven’t even begun to deal with the loss of Hannah, Zoe and Lucy. Right now all I can handle is the loss of my dear friend; I cannot even come close to wrapping my head around the death of these three little girls.

It’s also making me realize how much I counted on her to always just be there. There were so many things that I was working my way up to talking about and doing with her. Laurel was such a force of nature in the gentlest way possible. But to look at her and her life, and compare it to my own, rendered her a bit intimidating as well. I know she’d be laughing if she could hear this. She was just a little thing you see. She was half my size in more ways than one. I’m an intensely introverted person who has to work hard to open up to the outside world even a little. She pulled me out little by little over the five years that I knew her and still, it wasn’t enough for me to be able to talk to her seriously about adoption even though it was something that was so important to me and she was, without a doubt, the biggest expert on the subject I've ever known. It wasn’t enough for me to be able to continue to talk to her about the issues my oldest is having even though she was also a tremendous resource on struggling kiddos.

This all brings with it a profound sense of disappointment. In the fact that I will never get to ask those questions of my dear friend. In the fact that I allowed fear to keep me from someone who I loved so much and who loved me in return. In the fact that I now have no idea where to turn for the answers Laurel held so easily. In myself. And that just serves to double my own sense of loss.