Not a good night....

Last night I had a bad dream...well part was real and part dream. Tim was, I guess, snoring but when he did, it sounded like "mom....mom" kind of drawn out, though. So I guess I incorporated that into my dream. I saw Amanda there in a room and she is dying and is scared but is too drugged to do anything or even speak, but I hear her thoughts crying out to me for help. I know it comes from my fears that she knew what was happening to her but couldn't do anything to get our help. I fear her having been scared and alone and wanting her mom and dad. It was my job to protect her.

So also last night's group brought out something for which I have lived with regret over since Amanda was four. When I was pregnant with her, for multiple reasons I won't go into, I thought about  giving her up for adoption. I was not "fine" with it, but tried to convince myself it would be best for her. Long story short, she did go home with another couple for a day and a half but I was absolutely beside myself. I fully loved her and wanted to be the one taking care of her and was willing to do whatever it took, sacrifice whatever I had to of myself, to be able to raise her. Longer story short, I got her back and never, ever regretted it. However, I had had her birth recorded along with her baby dedication, etc. as I believed I would never get the chance to see my baby girl again after that day. However, on that tape is the adoptive father and mother holding her calling her by another name and saying, "this is your daddy/mommy." When Amanda was little, she used to LOVE to watch the "baby Amanda being borned beedoe" and I would always stop it before it got to anything showing the other couple...until this one day when I was busy doing something in the other room. I remember her asking me who this man and lady were and why did they call her Erica and why did they say they were her mommy or daddy. God help me, I wish I would have lied. That single event set in motion Amanda's lifetime of not feeling good enough or loved. No matter how much counseling we got to talk about it, no matter reinforcing that I loved her too much to let her stay gone from me and that I got her back because I wanted to be her mommy, her 4-year-old heart only heard and internalized that I didn't love her, I didn't want her, and I gave her away. That single event fueled her self-loathing and feeling that she wasn't enough, which in turn lead to her drug abuse and death. So you see, I will always feel responsible for her death, always.

So last night was a big ugly cry after the meeting when I was alone. I'm sorrier than I have ever been about anything, Amanda. I wish I had played it off like it was a joke or been quick thinking to come up with ANYTHING, but I was so upset at the time that I'd not been paying attention to what point the movie was getting to and just kind of in panicked shock, that I tried to tell her the truth in a way that I thought she might understand as a child but she was way too young to have received that. Even years later in counseling, it was my four year old's heart I heard, and I'm eternally sorry.

Tonight I was exhausted physically, mentally and especially emotionally. I hoped to sleep in tomorrow but Dad wants us to go take care of some banking business in Sherman in the morning. I was trying to sleep but thoughts of Amanda and the dream lead to me thinking about her ashes in the closet in the temporary urn, which lead me to thinking about the owl urn we want made (or for Tim to make). This lead to images flashing in my mind of Amanda on an autopsy table which then went to thoughts of her cremation. The thoughts of her autopsy and cremation and what her poor body went through rocks me to the core. It doesn't matter that "she" wasn't present anymore; that was still the body of my baby. You know the worst thing they put on her cremation certificate? The start and stop times. The length of time my baby was in the fire sickens me and gives me shudders. So again tonight, the tears flow. Tears for the damage I did to her heart. Tears because she's not here and I miss her more than words are adequate for. Tears because it's almost been six months and she should be turning 20 in four months and finally free of those difficult teen years. Tears because we will never be the same without her here. I feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me. Tim heard me crying and came in and held me and cried with me. Why did she have to go over there? Why? Why do Ryan and Erica get to go about their lives and I have to cling to Amanda's Baby Bop and cry?