The leftover bits of trauma

At a month before her sixth birthday, Anna's never really had any sort of traditional grief over her father's death. Questions and trying to understand what "dead" really means, sure...but she's never really had any emotional reaction to Charley's death.  Two years ago or so she'd parrot back what she'd heard me say to her: I miss my daddy, He loved me so much, He'd be so proud of me, etc., etc., etc. But it wasn't exactly her grief.

Our dog--the one that died so horrifically last summer--is a different story altogether. She definitely reacted--and grieved--for Chase last summer, both immediately after he died and over the longer term. Her reactions and thoughts about the dog had shifted toward the happier, more positive, by late this spring...but to my surprise, they started popping up again in full force in July.

I found it fascinating, because even though Anna didn't consciously know that it had been almost exactly a year since Chase died, her little body subconsciously must have been remembering little triggers, small reminders, that we were coming up on that time again. She had nothing really to say about the fifth anniversary of her father's death, but suddenly, she was talking about the dog again all the time.

Out of nowhere, she pulled out the photo album I'd made her last summer--the one with pictures of our dog in it--and started talking about the dog again a lot in the first week of July. As we drove home from the birthday party we attended earlier in the day on July 12 (the actual fifth anniversary of Charley's death), Anna sat in silence in the backseat of the car, and I could tell by the look on her face in the rearview mirror that something was going on inside that little body and heart and she didn't know exactly what it was. Yes, she was tired, in meltdown mode after falling off the merry-go-round and her other triggers, and extremely unhappy with Mommy because we didn't have time to let her play in the fountain area at the park. And when I asked her after several minutes what was wrong, I was expected her to tell me she was upset because she'd wanted to stay and play. But what she actually said?

I'm sad because I really miss Chase.

It came pretty much out of left field, because while she'd obviously been thinking about the dog a bit more than she had in months, she hadn't said anything other than happy things.

And this has been the pattern for the month of July. More mention of the dog. More frequent laments how she misses Chase.

And then she went camping this past weekend with Grandma, Grandpa, and my sister's family...the same cast of characters as when Anna went camping and Chase died last summer.

My sister threw together a camping trip at the last minute, and for various reasons, I couldn't go. But I knew Anna would love to go, had asked several times throughout the summer when we might be able to go camping (and with vacation, my family's work schedules, and so much other stuff going on, I didn't see how we'd be able to go at all this summer), so I asked my parents if they'd take her. And Anna was super excited about getting to go camping with her cousins...until she began to realize I wasn't going. And I could see it on her face--again in the rearview mirror as I drove--as she processed the information that I wasn't coming and as she remembered the last time she'd gone camping without me.

I wondered if she'd make the connection on her own...and she did. She started talking about the last time she'd gone camping with Grandma and Grandpa and I didn't go and how she'd sat in the front seat and she was holding on to Chase, and Grandma was in the back seat, and [blah blah blah]. Fortunately, she didn't actually say anything specifically about Chase dying on that trip or seeing him hanging there, but I knew she was connecting the dots.

And on last Thursday, as I dropped her off at her grandparents' house to leave for camping, she was clingier than she usually is. Wanted lots of hugs and kisses, exclaimed many times how she was going to miss me and Rosie (our cat)...far more than is typical for her when staying at Grandma's.

Some of it is simply because she's older and does miss me more when she's away from me, unlike when she was a toddler and really couldn't care less if she was away from Mommy for almost a week. But given her cues and how she'd been mentioning the dog so much, I'm sure some of her reaction was also because she was remembering Chase and how he'd died on her last camping trip. Fortunately, it was always only just a shadow of a thought, not an emotional maelstrom that came pouring out of her.

I felt torn in two directions as I got ready to leave her. Some of the original reasons why I declined to go weren't obstacles anymore, so I theoretically could have gone for about 24 hours or so, and I was debating if I'd try to meet them. My mom was quite vocal that I should come, but I was really conflicted about going. I didn't know if my prior plans for the weekend were really going to work out, it was a lot of work to go for only one day, I had a ton of stuff to do to start prepping for vacation, yadda yadda yadda. I made no commitment one way or the other if I'd meet them, but I asked my mom to keep me posted what campground they ended up at, in case I did come.

And it turns out, after I left Anna and was returning to our empty house, knowing my child was going off CAMPING without me--My god, I was releasing her into shark-infested waters! Danger! Danger! my brain cried at me--I finally realized why I was so conflicted about going.

Camping has become, unfortunately, a rather loaded thing for me the last five years. I grew up going camping all the time. We never really had money for big vacations, so we always went camping multiple times throughout the summer, and I loved it. I wasn't able to go camping at all for the first five years after college, and Charley, Anna, and I and my sister's family had originally made plans to go camping for the first time the week after he died. Needless to say, that trip didn't happen. My family planned a replacement trip for August a month after the first anniversary of his death, and it was horrible. Everyone else had a great time, but it was way too much for me. I was starting to totally unravel and fall apart after holding myself together for the first year of widowhood, and at 23 months old, Anna was just too little. In the end, it was a torturous, awful trip for me. The next time we went, the next summer right before Anna turned 3, was much better, but then the next summer--three years after Charley died--I had to deal with the dog and his disasters. And then there was last summer's prize-winning, crowning glory of Camping Disasters: when the dog hanged himself (and I wasn't even there that trip).

So all in all, in five summers of camping, I have a pretty shitty track record:

Good or decent camping trips, 2. Flaming disasters, 3.

It's no wonder I was "conflicted" and didn't want to go.

And if I wasn't busy and distracted while Anna was gone, I felt awfully funky. I had a weird, niggly little ball of anxiety in my gut, with dashes of guilt mixed in because I wasn't there camping with her. If I didn't think about it, I'd do okay, but as I'd pour myself a glass of water, as I'd close a window at night before going to bed (or something else equally mundane and unrelated), I'd pause for a moment and realize that I was anxious, worried, and afraid. I knew in my head that nothing would likely happen this trip...but my muscle memory remembered the trauma and its aftermath from last summer and all the other awful camping trips I'd had since Charley died, and it was bracing itself.

But I was also having a lovely time--a mini vacation for me, if you will. I drank some wine, relaxed, and caught up on recorded episodes of TV shows on my Tivo the first night. I visited with a friend on Friday afternoon and then saw Inception at the movie theater Friday night (which totally rocked by the way; you should definitely go see it!). I had a fabulous brunch with two college friends Saturday morning, ran some errands afterward, talked to a wonderful widow friend of mine for four (!) hours on the phone, took a nap in the late afternoon, and then met another friend who was visiting for the weekend for beers (at a bar! On a Saturday night! I don't even know the last time I did that). Sunday afternoon I attended my visiting friend's wonderful bridal shower and ran some more last errands before we leave for vacation. Today I had a doctor's appointment with my favoritest doctor ever (who's also a widow, although remarried now) and had my last photography class tonight.

So I've had a wonderful time while Anna was gone. I loved getting to see my friends and be out and about...but I felt worried and guilty all the same. I guess, though, that it wasn't all that different from all the times I've gotten wobbly and a little out of sorts when Anna's gone to Grandma Judy's every summer for her annual week there...but it sure didn't help any that I had the leftover bits of PTSD-like memories percolating just under the surface, courtesy of the dog's death under similar circumstances the year prior.

And of course I was worrying for nothing. Anna and my family got back home Sunday night, and Anna called me as soon as they got back to my parents' house. They had a wonderful time (no disasters! ...phew!), and it was so fabulous to hear Anna's voice again. She's still at my parents' house, until late tomorrow morning, because I needed baby-sitting for my plans today and because she wanted to stay and play with her cousins one more day.

So nothing bad happened. But Anna called me again last night--unusual for her, since she'd just talked to me two hours before--and exclaimed that she had big news! for me.

"I lost my wobbly tooth!" she proclaimed on the phone, all giggles and laughs.

We'd noticed about two months ago that her two bottom teeth were starting to get a little loose, and about a month ago, Anna declared that it hurt too much to eat corn on the cob (while still on the cob) because of her loose tooth. So I started cutting the kernels off the cob, and I've been regularly checking her tooth every few days. And it was loose, but it wasn't all that loose, I didn't think. It's not like it was hanging by a thread or that we could get it anywhere close to a 45-degree angle as we wiggled it. But she'd said in her first phone conversation after camping that it was loosening up a lot...but I didn't really think much of it. I'd been warning her that it might not fall out for a while still, maybe not til after her birthday and when kindergarten starts.

And it turns out she pulled it out herself while watching cartoons at Grandma's house. Just like that. And I think it's a hoot and astounding and all those Oh-my-gosh-my-baby's-getting-so-big mommy reactions. But I'm also a little bummed about it.

It's the first time I've missed any of her firsts.

I wasn't there for it.

And I know it's not a big deal. It's just a tooth, and she'll lose lots more. And I also know that I likely would have missed out on a lot more firsts had Charley not died and she'd been in daycare full-time all those years, or if I'd gone back to work earlier after Charley died. That it's taken almost six full years before I missed anything is rather remarkable.

And I thought, too, how what I was feeling was a small thing in comparison to all the things Charley is missing. I thought about parents who are divorced, working, or have other complications in their lives and who don't get to see their children as much as they'd like, how they miss things all the time too.

And I am a little sad that I missed it. But I'll take pictures of her, her tooth, and her gappy smile and whoop it up when I see her tomorrow afternoon, and we'll put the tooth under her pillow tomorrow night so the Tooth Fairy can visit. (I told her--quite cleverly, if I do say so myself--that it's way too hard for the Tooth Fairy to keep track of where kids are if they're not at home, so she'd have to wait til she got home. She didn't care (which was a good thing, because my mom only had a $20 bill)...and it turns out that she didn't actually know what the Tooth Fairy really did. Heard of her, yes, but didn't know about the surprise-under-the-pillow bit.)

I had a lovely weekend...but I'm really glad to be getting my special little girl back tomorrow....

May this mini-funk end fast (which it should, because VACATION is coming up fast!! Yippee!!).