Bonnie Dugan

I remember hearing Henry’s phone ring from downstairs. We were on the third floor, my sister and I. We had just gotten home from the hospital and were getting ready for bed. I was wrecked with guilt telling her I should have done something sooner. That maybe my mom would be better off if I’d done something sooner. She was trying to console me. But I knew I would never forgive myself.

I could tell in Henry’s voice that this was not good. I was not ready for what was about to happen. It felt like years passed as I waited for him to climb the two flights of steps to get to us.

“This is it,” he said. “We have to go back to the hospital.”

I didn’t know how to do anything after that. I knew we needed to get in the car as soon as possible but I couldn’t figure out how to decide what clothes to put on. What clothes do you wear to say goodbye to your mom forever? I wore a butterfly t-shirt and the blue “you are my sunshine” scarf she gave me, as if wearing something she gifted me could bring her back to life. We drove so fast to get there but it was still too late, and we all knew it running into the hospital, past security trying to stop us. We told them our mom was dying and they let us go.

Nothing could ever prepare me for the way that room felt when we finally got there. The silence. What once was filled with beeping sounds from the machines that were keeping my mom alive were no longer. The room was so cold. My soul left my body in that instance. I didn’t know how to be alive or function in a world that my mom was dead. I needed her so badly in that moment. I remember looking at her lifeless body, hoping her spirit would lift from it and wrap me in one last hug. I needed to be comforted by my mom, and in that moment I realized I would never be comforted again, not in the way I needed and wanted. I had never felt so alone in a room full of people.

And, somehow, four years later, I’m still here. I wish I could say things have gotten better since then but they haven’t. I’ve lost four babies and the most important person to me, my mom. I have one living miracle who I have trouble enjoying because I battle with the trauma of it all. My depression can be crippling and my anxiety makes it hard to function.

The memories of her death, and the death of my babies haunts me.

A part of me died when my mom died. More parts of me died every time I heard those dreaded words, “I am sorry but I can’t find a heartbeat.” I thought life would eventually get easier but I’m realizing that’s not the case. I just have to accept it, but I’m having a hard time doing that. How do we accept the unfairness of it all? How do we create moments of happiness when the deepest parts of our soul are broken beyond repair? How do we survive in a life that is so fragile?

I always feel like I need to wrap these stories and thoughts up with a tidy bow but that’s not what’s real. What I know to be true is that I need my mom, and I know that won’t happen so I am trying to find alternative ways of comfort. I’m trying to accept how others can show up for me.

But I’m stubborn like her. If I can’t have her, then I don’t want them.

I know that I need to live again. That’s what she would want, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to live in this world of mine that is filled with so much pain.

But I also don’t want to die like this. I keep waiting for things to get better but maybe the problem is, they never will. Maybe I just have to live anyway and find a way to accept that.

Maybe I just have to live life on purpose, despite it all?

I love you infinity, Mom. Send me a sign?

Xoxoxo