This is the last ever picture I shared of Daisy before she died. It's the day before she died, she was deteriorating but had not reached crisis and the point of no return. I had asked for a visit from one of the hospital's Pets as Therapy dogs as Daisy was so sad and missing home and really missing her dog.
This visit was a stop gap, I had plans in place to bring her beloved dog Pluto to the hospital to meet her, by hook or by crook, at the hospital entrance so that they could be together and he could hopefully cheer her up, she was asking for him constantly.....
The visit from Pluto never happened....24 hours after this picture was taken, Daisy had taken her last breath...
And this picture makes me sad, because it's a reminder of that last promise that I was not able to keep. All she wanted was to go home, and most of all to see her dog who she loved so much.
I know I did everything possible during Daisy's life to make her happy. I fought to ensure that she was seen as a little girl and spent as much time as possible doing the things she loved. I advocated for her to get her the support she needed, I trained to administer the most complex of regimens to keep her out of hospital....I know I did everything for her....
....but grief can cloud your rational brain.....
Tonight it's three years since that picture was taken, it's the night before the third anniversary of Daisy's death and seeing that picture made me sad. Sad that despite everything else I had done, I didn't do that one last thing for her, even though I know events took over, even though my rational brain is screaming that I'm wrong, I still feel sad.
Grief is a bitch.....it really is. Those five stages of grief that we are supposed to move through: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance , I can confirm that grief isn't like that.
Grief makes you think in an irrational way, it makes you lose logic and reasoning. And then when you think you've got the better of it, it comes back, through a smell, a sound, a taste, a touch, a photograph....and you are right back in the moment.
I have learned a lot about grief over the years. It affects us all so differently. It isn't always the keening women at a wake, or the tears and widows weeds. For me it's been channelled into doing, into making meaning of all of the things that have happened to me. Keeping memories alive and using my experience to help others.
Grief doesn't have a pattern or a predictability, it isn't a stereotype. It's something I carry with me, always. And it doesn't make me a sad person. Well sometimes it does, when something unexpected hits me , out of the blue, like this photograph. And then, very privately I allow my tears to fall.
Despite my decision to share so much of my life with Daisy through this blog I am actually very private, my grief is mine. It's my burden to carry. And I will always carry it, tucked away inside me, it's a part of me that will always be there. It waxes and wanes....
The anniversaries are the hard times and time, while it lessens the intensity, doesn't heal. Three years since that last time I held Daisy, I live every moment leading up to it, like it was yesterday, I allow my grief to surface and to take me back to that place....I need to do it, I need to connect with my daughter, I need to remember....I'm scared to forget.
I am scared that if I don't feel it that she will slip away and the umbilical connection I have with her will be finally severed...and I'm not ready for that yet.
I'll tgo back to the hospital tomorrow, to the chapel where we held her wonderful memorial service. I'll go to the place where the big book is kept, every day the page is turned and tomorrow it will be January 31st , and I will see her name inscribed in the book....the day she died.
I'll have a cry and a moment of reflection. Then I'll tuck my grief back deep inside me, living with me always. My life, my grief.