Hiding

This one is heavy… Feel free to pass it by if you do not want to be pulled down for a few minutes.

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We have been messing around with trim and paint in the front room… While doing so, I have had to move the router and all the wires that look terrible when wadded up for month after month.  I was happy to have an excuse to rebuild the setup.  One part that was not set up was the wifi extender.  I need this NetGear device if you want to share the internet throughout the house.  Our normal router is stuck in the southernmost corner.

Daryl came over the other day to record a new podcast… and it was a pain to sit on “one bar” of connection or less.

Over the weekend, I thought this might be a good chance to use the central space in the house…  Like Summer’s room to locate the range extender that has been sitting idle.  Its a logical place as it sits nearly dead center in the house.

I grabbed up the wires and headed into her room.

Not much has changed in 6 months.  Angela has cleaned up the floor that was once full of debris from what we moved out of her apartment.  The bed is still covered with random items and her velvet bag of ashes.  On her shelf, there is a BOSE rechargeable soundbar that she uses to listen to music in her dorm room.  It still sits on the charger and the green light is on, indicating it’s fully charged and ready to go.  Other charger wires going from the wall to her bed are still plugged in for her phone and other devices.  It was difficult to find an open socket for the Netgear device.

I removed one of the charge blocks that was keeping me from plugging in and started getting anxious.

As I was kneeling, messing with the cords in the half-dark room, I had a vision of Summer, in full health, wearing a blue T-shirt and sporting her frizzy hair sitting against the wall giggling.  She was squatted down sitting next to her bedside dresser in a spot that was just the right size that she could fit.  Her giggle was childlike and filled with joy I remember when she would laugh at me.    It’s as if she has always been here… “You found me!” she says.  All that stuff last June was a mind trick.

No, this is now my mind creating a trick.  I had to shake it off and nervously plugged in the extender and started to walk out.

At that same moment, Angela was coming down the hall…  And she passed by Summer’s room without looking in or having any idea I was there.  I just stood silent as she walked past.  Unconsciously thinking that sneaking out of there would dodge a conversation with her about the heaviness I felt in that room.  It did avoid any talk… But my vision of Summer laughing and “hiding” in that room has not faded.

I am genuinely afraid to share this, but I have had a few people tell me that it helps them.  And I know that writing things down helps me.  So, there it is…  a moment in grief that is all too real.

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Angela will sometimes walk up to me and say “I thought about Summer today”.  We hug and I tell her that I have thought about her as well.  I guarantee I think about her more than you can imagine.

Dreams.  Getting ready for work.   Driving to work.  Lunch break.  Random thoughts throughout the day.  Driving home.  Laying down to sleep.  All of those are 100% guaranteed moments when I think of her.  Then, you have the other spaces in between..

Some days are better than others.

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I do feel a genuine empathy towards people I know who have kids and I want everything for their success and happiness in life.  I almost think this experience has put me more in touch with the value of family and the labor it takes to be successful.  I want nothing more than absolute bliss for those I know.

But there is something about strangers…  I would take from them if I could get what I lost back.

You see two happy people who are younger walking down the street…  And you wonder to yourself…  Why my kid?  What cosmic BS could select my kid over those perfectly fine kids over there?  I don’t know them.  IT would be much easier to never know this pain as it would be transmuted onto another family.  Isn’t this the way of the world?   We, as humans, are happy to take and take from others if we cannot establish a relationship with them.  If you have any knowledge or bridge to them… You immediately turn off this mechanism.  Probably how wars start.

Evil?  It feels like it.  I think it’s my mind looking for logic in the illogical.   Will these thoughts help?  Not so far as I can tell… yet.

It all just keeps tugging at the internal monologue that circles around “Not Fair” and “Why Us”?

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Empty Room.  It’s a song from the last Arcade Fire album.  It resonates with me.

I can say “Summer” when in conversation…  But there is a certain level of insanity to saying her name to myself… Especially out loud as if addressing her.  “Why would you do that?” you might ask.  Because there is still a feeling that this is not real.  Life is just an extended dream sequence?  Nightmare?  I am just one more turn in the maze from finding the exit.  An exit that leads to where our lives were headed 2 years ago?  “Summer”…  Where is that crack in reality that will let you crawl back in?

I hold my breath and do not say her name out loud as if it will broadcast my insanity.  I fold my arms across my chest and hold her name to myself.