Sunday - 1/27/13
Mom,
Here I am writing to you at the end of another uneventful weekend. Though, to be fair. I actually had been planning on going out yesterday but plans fell through. Honestly I don't even care. Unfortunately, with all this nothingness, my sleeping schedule has gone all out of whack. I sleep when I finally get exhausted and wake up when I finally feel like not forcing myself to stay asleep. I really need to get out of the habit so I just took some Nyquil which will hopefully knock me out soon so I can finally get an early start tomorrow.
Who am I kidding. though? Even if it does work tonight, I'll probably get back into the habit in a couple of days. At least when you were alive I had a good excuse for my terrible sleeping schedule. Now it's just because I'm lazy and obsessed with TV.
You know the main reason I would stay up crazy hours was to wake you up for your 2 or 3 o'clock pill but what you didn't know was that I would also do it to keep an eye on you. Even when your pills got switched around and you didn't have to wake up in the middle of the night I would still stay awake next to you or in the next room. When you were in the hospital and the nurse was just a call button away I would still stay up late into the early morning hours just to keep an eye on you. If you needed to use the bathroom I needed to be there to help push the IV machine. If you needed some water, I needed to be there to get you some ice and straws. If you needed to change positions, I needed to be there to readjust your pillows for you. You could've done most of these things alone or with the help of a nurse, and you sometimes did when I would finally get some sleep in, but for the most part I just felt I needed to be the one to help you.
Sometimes I would stay up just to literally keep an eye on you. I used to look up from my computer and over to you in the middle of the night to watch you sleep. I liked to make sure you weren't sleeping fitfully and, honestly, I would sometimes just find peace in the fact that you were still alive. I could see your chest slowly rise and fall and it just made me content to know that I still had you in my life. I know many people didn't realize it but I was very apprehensive during all of this. Behind all the smiles and jokes and even the snarkyness I knew we were all just hanging by a thread. I knew cancer was a very serious disease and, though I had so much faith in your recovery, I understood that things could easily go the other way. And it did. And just because I understood it didn't mean I was ready for it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I miss you like crazy and I wish I could just walk into the next room and see you lying in your bed, you chest slowly rising and falling. I wish I could feel that peace in knowing I could just walk over and hold your hand or kiss your forehead or tell you I love you (and know you can hear it). But I can't. Because you're dead. And it hurts so freaking bad.
Please, please, please let there be a heaven so I can one day be with you again.
Always with you,
Erika















