Friday, January 13, 2012

A note from Daddy

Some days are "normal" days.  These are the days where you just feel like you woke up with a missing limb or a chronic disease.  There's just something mildly wrong in the background.  These are the days when everyone says how strong you are.  How inspiring you are.  It is true that there seem to be more of these days as you move forward and you seem to get more done on these days.  You're just one of the walking wounded.  Maybe it's hard to classify whether you have PTSD or just some bad nightmares.  It's hard to tell whether it's stomach cancer or just an ulcer.  You have a limp but maybe it's just a tendon pull.  You're not as smart as you used to be, you can't remember things as well, but the fog seems to be lifting. You'll solve a math problem on a blackboard, soon.

There are other days that are, depending on how you look at them, either more realistic or less realistic days.  If reality is what we feel, these are the most realistic days, the days reality comes crashing in.  If reality is what the world says exists and doesn't exist, then these are the days you fear you may be slipping away from reality, the days of unreality, the days of not accepting reality.

Today is that kind of day.  I wake up this morning the father of twins, desperate to see my twins, desperate to have the last 135 days back with my twins.  I wake not understanding a single thing about why we lost Sonne, not knowing where she is, not knowing whether or not I'll ever get to hold her on the other side.  I hope and pray that I will.  This is no dull ache.  This is no missing limb.  This is the kind of pain I felt the moment she died in mine and Ali's arms.   There's no music that can lift me up, no drug that can make me high, no salve that cool the burning.

And my dear Morgen.  She's so beautiful.  She's growing up so fast.  Sitting up.  Smiling.  Cooing.  Watching the images when I read her a book from thousands of miles away on FaceTime.  I imagine I'll have to explain this to her over and over again.  I grew up thinking I had lost a twin at birth.  Science today says maybe I did, maybe I didn't.  We'll never know.  But Morgen has pictures of her little sister.  She lost so much that day.

People say to me sometimes, "I can't believe you're here.  I'd still be at home crying.  I'd never come out again."  They say that because they can't figure out what else to say.  They don't know what they would do.  But if they had to experience this - and I hope none of them ever does, they do the right thing, too.  They'd do the best they could.  They'd make mistakes.  They'd have times when no one could console them.  They hide away at times.  They'd isolate themselves at times.

I will do the only thing I know how to do today.  Continue to fight.  I may cry a lot and if you see me in the production office in Toronto, or at the Metropolitan Hotel or at our set, and my eyes are puffy and red, the answer is: Yes.  I have been crying.  It's just who I am now.  Someone who occasionally has days that are more tears than anything else.  Today is one of those days.  The pain is just as bad as 135 days ago.

At least it is right now.

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