Veteran's Day blues....

Dear Charming, 

It's Veteran's Day... and we both know what that means. It's Piper's birthday. 

In speech therapy, one of the main goals is to orient you to person, place and time. Which means that, every day, they tell you what day it is... over and over and over. I warned your therapist that on this day she may want to skip orienting you. Tell you it's November. Tell you it's 2013. But do not tell you that it's the 11th and do not tell you that it's Veteran's Day, because if you are able to make that connection in your brain, it WILL upset you. Not might. It definitely will. I knew this day would be especially hard for you... 

I'm trying to muster everything in me to focus on Piper and her special day... but I find it hard to be in the mood for celebrating. I ordered her a cake. We usually make the cakes for the kids together. Ordering the cake, I thought I was doing the sensible thing. "With all of this going on, I don't have the time to make a cake," I reasoned. But with you in rehab, and my not being able to spend the night with you, I realize that I could have made her cake, if I had felt up to it. The truth of the matter, Charming, is this: I couldn't face doing it without you. Part of me was scared to. Afraid I'd mess it up without you there to help me. Mostly though, I just couldn't bear doing it without you here with me. 

What am I so afraid of? You are alive... and even though you aren't home with me tonight, as I wish you were, I know you will be soon. If I can't muster up enough courage for even the simplest of tasks like baking a cake for our daughter, knowing you are alive and recovering, I can't imagine how I would have carried on had I lost you. 

Do you remember the day she was born? I remember you going down to the gift shop and coming back with a pink teddy bear that was bigger than I am. Sweet Piper Céline. Beautiful from the moment she was born. I remember the nurses and doctors pulling you aside and the only word I could hear them say was "hands." Panicked, I asked you what was wrong. You remained calmed, so as to not alarm me. Our beautiful little princess had six fingers on each hand, the extra digit had no bones going through and so could be easily removed later. You were always my strength and my rock. You stayed calm for me, even though I know you were screaming inside. Seven months later, I clutched an M&M's teddy bear in the bathroom of a hospital, not so unlike the hospital I spent 4 weeks with you at, crying as our infant daughter was taken into surgery. I mentioned before it's funny what qualifies as a tragedy before real tragedy hits you. An hour later, she was back in our arms, as if nothing had happened. Bandages on her hands were the only sign that the polydactyl digits had once been there. Today, tiny scars mark where they once were. Unnoticeable unless you are looking for them. 

I posted a birthday message on facebook on both our behalf for her. Sobbing and falling apart as I typed, it hit me that I didn't order her cake out of a lack of time to one for her. I did it for me. I knew this day could be potentially hard for you. Knowing you are alive and you are slowly coming back to me, I had underestimated just how unbearably hard this day would be for me. 

Over the last month and a half, you have occupied nearly every waking thought. My focus has been on you, whether you'd survive, and then when you did survive, what would the journey ahead look like in getting you back to us. There has been no place too far for me to go, or no measure to extreme in saving you.  When you transferred to rehab and I realized that I would no longer get to sleep with you every night, I fell apart. The fact that you get so agitated and demand to go home that I can only spend a couple of hours with you at the most at a time has been extremely difficult for me. I miss you. Much more than you will ever know. I've bee assured that you won't remember this... but I will. Every tear that has fallen, I will remember. The devastation of almost losing you, the joy when you came out of the coma, to the heartbreak of how little time I have gotten to have with you since you entered rehab. I will remember it all. 

And now here we are, November the 11th. Piper's birthday. I know I should be focusing on that, but it doesn't feel right without you here with us. It's not fair. This is as much our special day as it is hers. I am praying for strength. I can't do this without you. 

I love you 

Snow