All I can say is, “Boy what a night last night.”  Keith and I typically go to bed, what might seem for most people, rather late.  It seems like if we are starting to get ready for bed by 11 o’clock or midnight that it is an early night for us.  We both are such night owls as we usually are going to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning and sometimes even later.

Well, last night did not start off as a good night once we got upstairs and settling down for the night.  As it was, . . . → Click Here To Read More: When life throws you a curve ball (man, all I wanted was a fast one :) )]]>

All I can say is, “Boy what a night last night.”  Keith and I typically go to bed, what might seem for most people, rather late.  It seems like if we are starting to get ready for bed by 11 o’clock or midnight that it is an early night for us.  We both are such night owls as we usually are going to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning and sometimes even later.

Well, last night did not start off as a good night once we got upstairs and settling down for the night.  As it was, I was very tired.  It’s around 1am and by that point the littlest thing seems to be irritating to me.  For example, my husband setting the alarm for the time he did (we’ll leave that for another story :p).   It’s all jumbled up together now.  It was stuff that just seems stupid now (aren’t most fights this way after all :) ).

Ultimately, the conversation ended up on Mari.  It has been several months (at least 3 or 4) since we have had a real conversation about MarMar.  We just hardly talk about her anymore.  I guess that is what happens in life when you don’t have that person around you everyday like you used to.  It’s not that you forget about her, as I am sure you can imagine we don’t.  It’s just they are not here to talk about.

I ended up going down the road of talking about how I felt like I was a bad mom.  Mari’s autism was so severe and hard to deal with sometimes.  People always thought I had such great patience when they saw me with her.  I always felt my patience was on its last legs.  It was always running thin and towards the end of her life in those last couple of years it just seemed to be growing thinner and thinner.

There were times when she would do things like writing on the walls or pulling down her pants to go potty right in her bedroom instead of letting me know she needed to go to the bathroom so she could use the toilet.  In these moments, I would just needed a break like counting to ten or even just putting her in her room for a little while so I could calm down.  Sometimes I look back and wonder how I even did it.

It is hard for me to admit this but I feel sometimes like I have so much regret.  I don’t like to tell people this because immediately they will say to me that I have nothing to regret.  I was a good mom and things like that.  However, I feel like such a selfish person sometimes as all I wanted when she was alive is to have my own time ALONE without her.  I still remember the day they called me from her school asking Keith and I to come and pick her up as she had diarrhea.  All I know is I wanted that time for me and I did not want her home yet.  4^th of July weekend was coming that weekend and so she was going to be home for the next four days.  I just wanted that “me time”.  But as parents, are you supposed to have that “me time” anymore?  Isn’t it all supposed to be about your children until they can be on their own?  And in my case, Mari was never going to be on her own with her autism the way it was.

Well, guess what happens: she gets sick and dies.  I know technically that it is not my fault she is gone.  However, I feel like I brought this upon myself for ever thinking this way to begin with.  You might be thinking, “Well every parent has their moments of wanting alone time.”  I know that logically it is not really my fault but it doesn’t stop those guilty thoughts that keep creeping into my mind.  I guess the bottom line is I miss her so much.

As I sat there talking to Keith I realized that now it was the 16^th.  We are exactly one month away from Mari being gone for two years.  Can you believe it’s already been two years?  It dumbfounds me.  Unfortunately for me, it always seems like around this time every month I always seems to have a hard time.  In the last couple of months everything has been ok for the most part.  However, this month is different.  For one, I have been sitting here really working hard on this site and getting it better organized.  In doing this I am rereading all my writing.  It is bringing up a lot of how I have been feeling over the last couple of years and rebringing those feelings to the surface. 

As I said a moment agao, we are exactly one month away from Mari being gone for two years.  Our lives have had to continue on.  Keith and I both feel guilty for being happy with the fact at how much easier our lives are now that Mari is not here.  You have to be a parent of a severely autistic child and then to have that child pass away to truly understand where we are coming from.  We talked about it again last night how if she were still alive that she probably would have been institutionalized by now.  Keith said that it still kills him to even think about it now but we both know that she was becoming a hazard to herself and her safety was our main concern.

Unfortunately, life likes to throw you a curve ball when all you want is fast one to be thrown straight at you so you can better control the direction your life is heading.  So much for what we want as life is filled with many curve balls that we would like to avoid all together.

It is hard to believe that as I sit here typing this that 6 months have gone by since Mariana passed away.

Sometimes I just sit here and wonder how this could be. I mean a year ago at this time we had just moved into our new home. Keith had finally gotten his orders for the Oak Lawn recruiting station to become a station commander there. We were getting ready to have both Keith’s and Mari’s 8th birthday party together here in the next couple of weeks. She was in her new . . . → Click Here To Read More: 6 months have come and gone]]>

It is hard to believe that as I sit here typing this that 6 months have gone by since Mariana passed away.

Sometimes I just sit here and wonder how this could be. I mean a year ago at this time we had just moved into our new home. Keith had finally gotten his orders for the Oak Lawn recruiting station to become a station commander there. We were getting ready to have both Keith’s and Mari’s 8th birthday party together here in the next couple of weeks. She was in her new school and she was acclimating quite well.

We were all just so happy but did not even realize just how truly happy we were back then. I mean, we used to complain about what seems so small now. About how cold it is. About how hard Mari was being. About Keith’s long hours (I mean don’t get me wrong, his hours are still ridiculously long, but that is another story ). Life in general, looking back, seems to have been so much simpler while at the very same time being harder in some ways.

Dealing with Mari was a day to day challenge sometimes. We can look back now and smile about all the things that used to drive us crazy when she did them. We can now look at them as things we so much miss and wish we could still have those issues back because ultimately it would mean that she is still here.

My life, the one that I have now, has become so much easier; so much simpler. But to have Mari back, I would take complicated and hard any day of the week. I would take all of those trials and tribulations that Mari gave us. I would just take it all back to have her here right now.

For our first year without Mari, Keith and I still have another 6 months to go. In the next 6 months Keith will have his first birthday without Mari since having her, we will have Valentine’s day without her, Our 15 year anniversary, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter (which every year, just like Christmas, I went shopping for that special Easter dress just for her), My first Mother’s day without her, Keith’s first Father’s day without her, and the 4th of July (which will probably be one of the hardest because last year’s 4th of July was spent in the hospital with her when we had no clue what was ahead of us at that point). Those are the holidays up ahead. Some may not seem that significant compared to others but none the less they are still all of our first holidays without Mari.

I dread any holiday coming because it is just one more reminder that Mari is no longer here with us. Her smile, her laughter, you can hear her and she just makes you smile. She brings excitement into your life while at the same time brings you to utter frustration. Ultimately, I can say, she was half of my everything. Keith is my other half. My everything will be put back together someday when we all meet up in heaven together again someday. We miss you MarMar and will see you again someday soon.