Final Goodbye? Never

 

As I send this post out on the internet, it has been exactly one year since I started making phone calls early that Saturday morning to tell friends and loved ones that my beautiful daughter had taken her own life the night before.

          After the police had left our house, after midnight, Hubby and I called our son to let him know. Then we laid in bed, thinking that if we could just fall asleep, we would wake up to what we wanted – that it had all been a nightmare. Instead, I finally got up, grabbed a notepad and made a list of all the people we had to call once we thought they would be awake. (My Kenyan travel buddy was the first one, as I knew she’d be up early and she had gone to Kenya with Val twice over the years.)

          Am I done mourning? Have I even started? How am I coping today? And how will I cope for the rest of my life, not being able to read a new text from her, or call her up, or plan an adventure with her?

          It was probably the day after that first one, when my son and I decided we should return to Kenya this summer to spread her ashes.

          And so we did.

          In several places, thanks to our wonderful friends who live there and loved Val as much as the rest of us.

Other anniversaries? While I was there, I passed the twentieth anniversary of our first trip to Kenya. And the eleventh month anniversary of Val leaving us. And today is three weeks since we arrived back home.

I’m trying to fill the hole that is left in my heart. Not with things that aren’t Val, but with happy, better times with my daughter. She’ll always be with me, and I want that to be in a place in my heart that is full of laughter, and rescued dogs, and waterfalls, and Kenyan chapati, and children’s hands, and all sorts of love.

May God bless you today and every day. And thank you to everyone for your support and love over the past year.