9 Months

It has been 9 months since Deedee went to Heaven. So much time, yet it still feels as if it all transpired just seconds ago... It all is too alive... The failed visit to the Sesame Place the day before... she cried because we turned back home and I just tried to make her stop... after all, we would visit for the whole day on the next weekend. She fussed for a long time... almost as if she knew that it was her last chance to see it all in its Halloween wonder. She was all dressed up as Pocahontas, and she wanted to have fun. It was the intention, but we got lost on the way and after the middle of the afternoon arrived we decided to leave that adventure for the other weekend... She cried until night arrived.

It feels like it was hours ago... the morning had been Daddy's business. He did all her respiratory therapy and she was bathed and dressed up. She was quite content. I went in during the afternoon to rearrange her room while she watched some oldies but goodies... She did not like those movies... She complained and rolled her eyes as I spoke to her. And she was quite upset when I dared to take her decorations from her bed... after all, she had made them with Mr. Farina... and no one could touch that stuff! She complied when she saw how I placed everything in the wall next to her bed, and when I reassured her that the week ahead was filled with fun and surprises... She needed space for her new Halloween crafts! And she would dress-up every single day as all her favorite characters... She was so excited about the Trunk and Treat invitation! It was going to be her first official Halloween outing, she was going to enjoy having kids her own age all around... 2012 was a year of breaking barriers and for her to try everything. She was thrilled, looking forward to the new adventure!

Just hours ago... I just finished her room, placed one of her favorite movies and walked out of her room. She was just fine, looking at me with the corner of her eye... It was nighttime, and she knew her respiratory therapy was to begin. Daddy went in and prepared everything around her... and asked for a moment to take a “potty break”. She didn't mind, she was watching her movie...

Just seconds ago, her Daddy screamed as he found her pale, bluish, non-responsive... He tried everything to make her react... He called me in the middle of it all... I called 911... They arrived... All too fast... All too sudden... All too surreal. No horror movie will ever match what we went through that night. Nothing can match;30 pm to the depth of all we felt, all the images in our heads, all that happened through the time from 8:00 PM to 4:45 AM. We had no idea that she would not pull through... She was intubated, but somehow she was stabilized. She just seemed to be resting, after a big scare... as she did more than 50 times through her short life... No one told us she had not been medicated. No one told us that her body just seemed alive because of the machines. I stayed with her through the night and Daddy had to go home as the little sister was just too much in the PICU and there was nothing else to do but watch and wait... To this day I cannot believe that they allowed him to go home knowing she would be done any second. They did not warn us about it at the hospital... yet the staff knew. They all knew. To this day it hurts because we were there for so many years, and we believed in the staff and their compromise... And they knew they could tell us the truth in black and white. That night became a snowball of lies... It should not have ended that way. We should have both been there when her body finally gave up. I had to ask the doctor to stop trying to revive our precious Diva... I said: Stop. I knew she was not there anymore... but to this day that “stop” breaks me... That stop hurts me as a thousand knives through my heart. That stop changed everything, forever.

It has been 9 months... of anger, of loss, of frustration, of sorrow, of wandering... Why everything happened as it did? Why couldn't she go in peace, surrounded by her loved ones... Why would she go just when she finally was beginning to break off her shell and show everyone all she could do... an aspiring animation artist, a visionary, a positive force that had no boundaries and that would not let her body stop her... Why instead of a loving final memory we had to deal with a blood-fest, then a bitter coming home... and then just plain twisted turns of fate. I wish I could feel or say something hopeful, anything that would make it all appear as an event that had to happen maybe for the better... How can it be better? Better was having our Diva with us. Better was the 4 of us, celebrating birthdays and Thanksgiving, Christmas, Baptisms, Valentines, UN-birthdays... Better was getting into her bed and falling asleep at her side. Better was the challenges we faced, and conquer. Better was loosing myself in her bewitching gaze.

There is no better for us. Although we know that there is everything better for her as she is now an angel and in the presence of God... there is only contempt for us... not a better. Better will come when we finally reunite again and forever... Until then... Know that you are always missed, always loved... always wished for. You made everything not only better but best... sparkles and sequins were optional. Life is harder every second... because of the bleeding heart that must keep on pumping... against all odds. The final prize: To hold you in my arms, in a most beautiful day.

Nine months to be subtracted from the countdown to make it so... I love you Deedee.

Mom