I have my moments during the days where I catch myself daydreaming about Hannah, depression moments wishing she was still here, or even just a smile on my face when I see a picture or something. Even though I still feel lost and loss in my life, I don’t spend my days dwelling in grief.
The nights are where I have more problems. Before Hannah passed and when my sleep schedule was so crazy, I would use melatonin to fall asleep after my ‘night shifts.’ However, after she passed, melatonin didn’t seem to work anymore, so I started taking over-the-counter sleeping aids, which still take a couple of hours to kick in.
It is hard to admit this, but every night when its quiet and I try to go to sleep, I have Hannah on my mind. Whether it starts with a good memory or how I am missing her and wishing she was back, for some reason I always end up thinking about that last night she was with us. Those last few hours. Those last few moments. And the aftermath that night after she passed.
To say that this experience is ‘haunting’ me is a harsh term to use. I mean, let’s face it. To say Hannah passed away “peacefully” is really not a totally factual statement. Because the hours before, during, and the hours after were a nightmare for me.
I have a problem because I keep replaying the entire night in my head. Replaying the important comments that were said by various people that night. Replaying how Hannah looked at various times of the evening as her body was finally shutting down. Replaying everything that happened once she passed away and the agonizing experience after the hospice people came to pick Hannah up.
Hardest of all, is replaying her last few moments…her look, her eyes, her hands, her smell, and her hair…the last moments she was Hannah. And then realizing Hannah was gone, as I still held her in my arms. I just can’t get them out of my mind.
Just thinking about it now is bringing tears to my eyes. But the thing is, there is nothing that I would have or could have done different to have changed the outcome. I have no regrets about how we handled Hannah’s condition once we realized that we were going to lose her back in mid-October. There is nothing that I would have changed about that last night she was with is…having my husband, my kids, our favorite nurse, and my inlaw family there was the best possible group to be there, loving on her until she was gone.
Yet when I am alone in my thoughts at night, I still can’t help to think if there was something I missed, something I should have seen a few months earlier that could have given us something to give her more time with us. Was there something differently I should have done that night she passed?
During the day, in my sane mind, I do feel we did the best we could with what we had available. It is the nighttime when I am tired but my mind is still cranking that these thoughts come. So I take the over-the-counter sleep stuff so I can fall asleep because otherwise I would be thinking all night long, and I know it is not healthy.
But another problem is the thoughts don’t always leave when I fall asleep. I have had a number of dreams about various situations that I know if were deciphered by a dream therapist would all come back to dealing with Hannah’s loss and the other losses that have occurred recently for me.
Maybe that is why I love looking at pictures and videos of her. Seeing her smile, her laugh, her absolute love … it gives me a chance to remember the good times because there were a LOT of good times up until a few months ago.
I hope that in time, these other thoughts will start to diminish. They will, right?
Oh Carrie, night time is absolutely the worst. My husband even wrote about it in about blog about a month after Gage passed away. I too would try so hard to think of Gage’s smile, and then those thoughts of his last moments would invade my mind and I would suddenly sit up in the bed hyperventilating. I would love to tell you that for me it stopped after a specific time frame, but I can’t. I CAN tell you that those thoughts have become much fewer and farther between and that time has helped me be able to control them. They no longer cause me to go into a panic attack and set me back for days. I think night is bad because we have time to think. We are not running around getting chores and errands done, so our mind has time to relax. That first year I ran constant scenarios in my head. What if’s. But honestly, like you, I have never regretted the choices we made. We did what was best for Gage, even though we knew it would cause us pain for the rest of our lives. That’s our job as parents, right:) I am so sorry you have to feel this pain. And I am so ready for this year when we can both step up in our roles as advocates to families like us, so that maybe one day parents like us won’t have to make these decisions at all.
Dear Carrie! Just a message from me to let you know I am still here! I know things seem hard right now – and can only imagine how hard it must be to get through the quiet times. Rest assured – as time passes the hard memories of the last day WILL fade and let the good memories of her life and energy fill more. It’s a process, and it’ll take longer than you like – but slowly as tie helps you all the good memories will crowd up and take the place of those and you will be able to celebrate her life fully when you think of her. Hang in there. Hugs from me.
Carrie I know that this pain will never end. But I think that you punish yourself with reevaluating your decisions. You did more than someone could possibly do and you continue with Hannah’s foundation, in order to help other people who experience the same pain as you and your family.Hold on to your memories but please don’t let them push you down. You are in my prayers always and I know that you are strong and you will survive through these rough moments for the sake of yourself and your family’s. Miss u my friend I wish i could be there for you.