Hi.
Welcome to my blog. Here, I document my journey after the loss of my brilliant daughter Elira to suicide in January of 2018. I am learning how to breathe and be again without a large piece of my heart walking this world.
Welcome to my blog. Here, I document my journey after the loss of my brilliant daughter Elira to suicide in January of 2018. I am learning how to breathe and be again without a large piece of my heart walking this world.
I never imagined I would ever lose Elira. I was so protective of her. I drove slowly, I never allowed her to ride with teen friends, I took her to all doctors for the smallest complaints, getting second and third opinions, I checked on her every night, twice, I worried about boat accidents and electricity. I guess, I knew how sown together she was with my heart and my soul and I feared my own survival if I lost Elira. Very suddenly, without any notice, Elira slipped out of this world. I didn’t get a chance to do all that I could to help her, I didn’t get time to say goodbye, I didn’t tell her “I love you” one more time and in my moments of fear and pain, I wonder how much she loved me. No one is prepared to lose a child, our brains cannot fathom it or else we wouldn’t be able to live with the unbearable pain. There are days that I wake up and I can’t breathe, I literally cannot catch my breath. That’s what child loss is like. It shakes you to your core. It hurts in ways you never imagined. It tests your strength and resilience daily. Every action is heroic, including breathing.
In September of 2017, 4 months before Elira left, she wrote this for a class assignment. The teacher had asked the students to imagine living without a person they really loved and to write what they would feel like. Elira chose to write about me, and this is what she wrote: “I am no longer human without her. I would be dead inside. Life would no longer be worth living. I would not be able to stop crying.” Oh, my love, how my eyes are never dry and my heart aches from your absence. But, it’s love, it’s this intense love that keeps me going.
And after I have gone through all the “what if-s”, After I have exhausted all the possible scenarios of how I could have saved you, I am left with this piercing unstoppable pain, This yearning for your being, A desperate desire to be with you, The only desire I really have right now.
I miss your presence and your future, But, at least I have your past, I am the owner of the treasure that was your life, The luckiest woman in the world, To be your mother.