Everything. Five Years Later.

Five years ago tonight we were in our house on Braeburn. All of us. We were praying, we were waiting, we were saying goodbye again...and again... Making sure we said it all. I told her things that I maybe never would have said while she was here. I hoped she already knew but just in case I told her.

I don’t know if mom ever slept. She might have lied awake next to Robin all night. The rest of us were on couches and chairs and even the floor because the living room was the closest to Robin’s room and we didn’t wanna be far. 

I was woken up on the morning of December 6th and I remember being terrified that I slept and that I was being woken up like this because I thought it meant she was already gone. She wasn’t though, but this time it was time to say goodbye for real. For the last time.

We went into her room and we all stayed in there holding her hand or at least touching her while we still could. For days she hadn’t spoken or hardly opened her eyes. It was probably hours of us telling her that it was okay to let go. She didn’t want to. She did not want to. If there was any chance of a fight to keep her, she would have fought it. 

It was only days before this that we realized this was really going to happen. Only days before that I was calling Kelsey, calling Meagan, calling all of her friends to tell them that this was it. We were going to lose her within days. Calling my close friend Miranda who lost her dad to cancer just the year before to tell her that this was really happening. Coming to terms with it myself. Just days before that, Jessica and I were sitting in the car outside of 7-11 contemplating if she was going to make it or not.

We each spent time trying to ease her mind. We each let her know we were going to be okay without her and that we wanted her to go to Heaven. We told her how much she would love it there. We told her who she would get to see when she got there.

Mom told her that she would drive her there if she could. That she wished she could.

Papa said come on Robin, we’re gonna go sail away to Heaven. 

We told her that the kids were gonna be okay. That we would all make sure they were.

I told her that I know she doesn’t wanna leave me. I know she feels sorry for leaving me here without her but that I know she has to go and it’s okay. You have to understand that for days she couldn’t speak or respond to us. It was probably killing her inside to not be able to say it back. She couldn’t say that she loved us, that she was gonna miss us, that she would stay with us. And I know her. I knew how she felt and I wanted her to know that I understood and that it was all okay. She spent her whole life protecting me and standing up for me and I just wanted to be able to be that for her when she needed it. 

After hours of these conversations, Robin opened her eyes and looked up. Jessica asked her if she saw the light. Wide eyed, she nodded yes. Jessica asked her if she saw Heaven. Yes. Jessica asked, who do you see? Do you see Grandpa and Grandpa and Keeley and all of the people that we love? Again, yes. We told her again that it was okay to go. We told her to go to Heaven. Go see Grandma and Grandpa and Keeley and Chico. They’re all waiting for you. We talked her to Heaven that morning and after all of those hours, just a few minutes later, she was gone.

We may not all be religious or spiritual. My family errs on the side of spiritual. But I’ll tell you one thing, when a moment like this happens in front of your eyes, you’ll know Heaven is real. You’ll know there’s more. Sometimes the person you’ve lost doesn’t visit your dreams and you don’t see signs and it’s easy to lose faith- but I promise you it’s all there.

As they took her away, papa started to sing Amazing Grace. We all sat in the entryway of our home and papa sent her away to Amazing Grace and we all cried and took in the reality of what happened. 

As hard and as traumatic those moments were- all of them from the day she was diagnosed to the moment she was gone- they were moments of beauty. I remember every moment as if it happened yesterday and I would trade it all to have her right next to me sleeping in this bed but you have to see the grace and the overwhelming love and beauty in those moments that we will never forget.

Now, let’s get real for a minute.

Here is what no one talks about when we speak on losing a loved one and grief. 

What happens when your family loses the glue that once held it together?

If you know us, you have heard each member of my family talk so passionately about Robin and who she was and what a special connection each of us had with her. The truth of the matter is, our family has a disconnect that might never be the same as it once was with her here. We do our best. But holidays and birthdays and fucking Tuesday’s for that matter are just not and never will be the same. The person who could break the tension with a funny Stuart impression or a weird dance is gone now. The person who could actually get any one of us to listen to her and calm us down is gone now. There is significantly less laughter and fun in our home. It’s just not the same. And years of this can really take a toll on a family and the relationships within it. It becomes colder, it just changes. And it is because she is gone.

Nobody talks about the feeling of when “Mom Calling” pops up on your phone at a time when you’re not expecting it. Who has cancer? Who died? Something bad has surely happened. And you pick up the phone, holding your breath and she just says “Lainah was wondering what kind of face cream you bought her” and then you explode as if it is in any way her fault that you are traumatized “MOM I thought something happened” before realizing- just for a second- that not every phone call is going to change your life

And for me personally?

The person who holds many if not all of my childhood memories is gone. The nostalgia I hold is different than most because I can’t sit and talk and laugh about all of the most fun times we had as kids and the silly things we said and did and the games we played and the movies we watched because her sisters were years older than her and my sisters are years younger than me and we were our own generation of Ryce girls. We have Christmas and I feel alone. We have a family dinner or party or anything and I feel alone. I’m left all alone. I know that if she did have a choice she would have never left me. I know she didn’t really leave me. But that doesn’t change the feeling.

The night she passed, I slept in her bed. I was having this dream where she was sick in her bed and mom and I were helping her move around. She couldn’t really move or talk. It all felt like a normal dream until she turned her head to me and said “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry” and in that moment I knew she was really there in my dream, telling me she was sorry for leaving me. 

Five years later... It still feels like yesterday. The silver lining? The moment we get to see each other in Heaven. I’ll be waiting my whole life for that moment.

The Ball in the Box

It’s 2019. We are coming up on five years. In just a couple of weeks it will be five years since  I got the worst news of my life. In a couple of months it will be my 26th and your 32nd birthday. In a few more months, five years since I got to be next to you. How is this real?

I read somewhere that grief is like a ball inside of a box. On one side of the box there is a red button. At first, the ball takes up most of the box and is hitting the button (which represents pain) over and over again so the pain is constant. Over time the ball gets smaller and bounces around, only occasionally hitting the red button and the grief becomes easier to manage. (If you look this up, it is explained much more gracefully.)

This is the best way that grief can be described. After some time you can float along even for months without the ball hitting the button, feeling like you’ve got everything under control. But it is not under your control and without warning, the ball hits the button and presses down as hard as it can. This is tonight. 

There are different things that get me from time to time. This time it is the memory of the summer that Robin was sick. I’m pretty sure I have mentioned in 80% of my posts how I stayed by her side 24/7, even when we didn’t think it was terminal. This is what is getting me tonight. I stuck next to her whether she wanted me there or not. Sometimes there would be a house full of company who came over to have dinner with us and she just couldn’t get up the energy, so I would make my plate, make her plate, bring it upstairs to her and we would lay there and eat dinner together, by ourselves. We had spent moments like this together for all of our lives and it’s just one of those special, lay in bed, don’t even have to talk to each other bonds. We should have gotten to have those moments for the rest of our lives. 

There are questions I want to ask her. What was the name of that girl we went to elementary school with? What was that one show we used to watch? Do you remember when....? I wanted to tell her when I beat a hard level in Super Mario and I want her to be able to play with me again. And in those moments when I think of a question or have something funny to tell her, I genuinely forget that she’s gone for a second. I pick up my phone and then it hits me and I put it back down and the ball hits the red button and I remember that I have to live the rest of this life without her in it.