Monday, April 30, 2012

Sweet Emily

Today is six months since Tabitha passed away.  I am handling it surprisingly well today.  But part of that is because I had such a bad day last Friday.  Which, since I don't check the date very often, I thought was the 29th, instead of the 27th, and so I spent most of the morning crying and feeling miserable.  And by most of the morning, I mean I woke up at 3:30, and didn't fall back to sleep until around 11, when Dan went to work.  After my nap things were better.  But the morning was awful.

When Emily wakes up in the morning, she usually crawls into bed between Dan and me.  Friday was no different, except I left to go be miserable by myself on the couch.  Emily followed me, with the box of cookies we had bought at the store a few days earlier, and which Emily and I had been snacking from the day before while hanging out in my room in the evening, while Dan was at work.  I lay on the couch and watched her struggle to get the plastic box open.  She eventually pried it open, and insisted that I eat a cookie.  Then she got one of her baby dolls, telling me it was Tabitha.  Since I was being showered with attention on the couch, I went back to bed.

Emily followed, and shoved the baby doll into my arms.  I had to hold it.  Then she informed me that I had Tabitha, and I had eaten a cookie, and I should be happy.

Sometimes I don't know why I am so lucky to have my sweet Emily.  She is ever trying to take care of me.  Which makes me feel guilty, because I should be taking care of her.  And she pretends to be a baby sometimes, which I think might be because I miss Tabitha, and she is trying to make me happy.  But, she also pretends to be a puppy, so maybe it is also because she just likes to play pretend.  I try to tell her I love her, that I am so glad she is here.

Sunday was actually the 29th, and I was sad, but we went to church in the morning, and I talked to some friends.  And they had food afterward, and then we stopped off at the cemetery to visit Tabitha.  Her headstone arrived at the cemetery on her birthday, and they got it into the ground about a week later.  The next day we bought some wood, dirt, and flowers, and Emily and I went over to the cemetery to put in the flower box and flowers. 


Emily helped me with some of the digging, until I encouraged her to go find some pine cones for Tabitha, since she was getting some of the pellets they had spread all over the grave into the hole, and I'm pretty sure those pellets are to help grow grass (there is also grass seed on the grave, but the pellets must be there for some reason).  Yesterday Emily was pretending to be a dog again, and started digging in the dirt and pellets.  We stopped her, and sent her off to play, which meant we had to stop her from digging into the dirt in a couple other places.

"Don't dig on the grave" is not something I expected to tell my three year old.

Nor did I ever picture Emily calling "Taffa, we're home" across the cemetery as we made our way to her grave with dirt and flowers.

Today Emily and I have been spending lots of time together.  And Saturday morning, we went to the park, just the two of us.  Dan had to work.  I am so grateful for my Emily.  Keeping busy helps me deal with losing Tabitha.  But spending time with family makes me happy.  And Emily is so good at spending time with me. 

3 comments:

  1. I'm so glad you and Emily have each other to look after. Dan too, but you know what I mean.

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  2. I am glad you, Dan, and Emily have each other. I wish we could all see life as trusting and easily as a three year old.

    Jill surprised me today. We have just come back from visiting Amy, and she's been talking about baby Heather, but today she came over with her baby and said, "This is baby Tabitha. She's not gone. She didn't die. She's right here." It made me think of what Emily said to you about her baby doll. I don't know why Jill keeps thinking about Tabitha, but I am really happy that she hasn't forgotten her. I never will.

    The gravesite looks beautiful.

    I am excited to see you, Dan, and Emily soon. And your cute baby belly.

    I hope it was okay to share what Jill said. It's just that Tabitha was here for such a short while, but she was such a beautiful, sweet baby, and she made a big impact on our family. She'll always be with us.

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  3. Emily is so sweet. I am glad there is someone so adept to take care of my favorite twin while I am so far away. :)

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