los dias nefastos comienzan de nuevo

It's cold and foggy out this morning, it fits perfectly with my state of mind and mood.

I feel both like I am walking in the fog and yet clear, painful memories keep cutting deep.

Tears flow just thinking about the trauma of that morning six years ago.

I'll come back and tell you more if I have the strength, for now, please just send me peaceful thoughts.
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4.22

Six years ago today, we forced the doctors to sit with all of us ... to explain what was really going on with my sister.

Six years ago today, we let go.

Well, I don't know that we really let go. I didn't let go. But the headache I had been suffering lifted for the first time in three days.

I have to construct a wall around my heart to even write these words.

I wonder if I will ever be far away enough from this to actually remember those days in the hospital. I wonder if those days will remain in the "nefastos" category forever.

And tears fall down my face and little splashes of tears dirty my glasses, and I still can't REMEMBER, but the grief pierces my heart.

And even though I cannot will myself to remember all that happened in those days, I get flashes of the story as if it were a movie, and sometimes these wake me from sleep.

In sleep, I am in that panic mode of what can I do to make this stop. I used to be able to change the trajectory of my dreams, but this is not just a nightmare, it is reality.

Yesterday we sat around the table and shared some of the the trauma of the last six year with a friend we haven't seen in a while.

The tears welled up in her eyes. I felt bad, but we don't talk about it, and her presence gave us the space to do it.

4.23
I am exhausted. Sleep is hard, not as bad as it was all those years ago. But in the darkness, I remember that night I arrived. I had the mijo with me. His dad was at the hospital over night with Chila. As soon as the room was dark, the mijo asked me, Do you think she can get better?

What could I say? I told him I did.

You can't expect a miracle if you don't believe.

Last week, after six years, we talked about the trauma. I had the mijo with me for three days, and as always, it was bittersweet. And he asked me as soon as we were alone. Nowadays the questions are not as straightforward as they were that night. He asks a really hard, oblique question. He sees how I handle it. If I say something he can trust, I might get another one. I have to guess at context and meaning. I have to navigate the bombs. And if I do a good job, I get a little window into what is bothering him.

This time, eventually, after several hard questions, I said to him that he is allowed to have emotions ... that the trauma of losing someone when he was so young will stay with him, that it is okay to talk about it, to take care of himself.

I reminded him that at the hospital he was so worried about others - it's who he is, it's what he inherited from her.

He had a box of tissues, and if he saw a tear fall down someone's face, he was at that person's side, offering solace. He was scared to death, and he was consoling others. And afterwards, he was so worried about his dad, his own emotions did not get to be aired.

I took him to grief group every week. I suggested the one on one, but he didn't want to talk about it.

And now, here we are, and I worry, but I am glad that he still trusts me.

And I worry that if I could have just cried in front of him that maybe I would have helped him more. But even now I can't just let go and wail even though my soul is doing just that.

I am exhausted.

I say that feeling emotions is exhausting.

But maybe it holding them in that is exhausting.