Anonymity

...is the curse of the internet. The two comments on my last post are weird -- "You are more like me than I ever knew", suggests that the poster knows me. Yikes.

Edited to add: Never mind, I'm battling early Alzheimer's or something. I checked the comments more closely and figured out who it was -- someone who really DOES know me. Freakout over.

Anyway, for a change, it's raining here. I really would be happy in a place like Seattle, where it rains all the time. I like a nice sunny day now and then; who doesn't? But most of the time, if it's sunny out, I have this feeling that I should be out there DOING something in it. Then once I get out there, it's too hot and I have to slather myself with sunscreen since I don't tan -- I burn and then freckle. Very attractive. Then if I'm driving somewhere the car gets like an oven after it's been parked in the sun. Waah waah waah, I know.

But right now is the closest to nirvana I can get during the day -- the house is fairly clean (as long as you don't look at the bathrooms too closely), it's raining just the right amount and suitably dark, Emily is napping, and I have some time to do whatever I want. It's too bad the computer is up in the smallest room of the house. One of these days we're going to have to go broadband, and get a nice laptop so I can do this while sitting through another episode of Dora or in the kitchen or something.

I am still having a rough-er time with Hannah's actual death. I know that sounds weird -- it happened over 18 months ago, after all. But what I mean is that on some level I do know that she died, but I don't think that I've really accepted that fact deep down in my soul somewhere. I try to think of it and my mind sort of skitters away from the whole thing.

As far as I know she died almost instantly, but of course, the operative word there is "almost". I'm guessing that between the impact of the truck hitting the back of our car and my slamming backwards and our heads colliding (which had to have knocked her out, if it didn't actually kill her), probably less than a second elapsed. My seat back collapsed onto her chest and crushed her heart, but from what I understand she would have been unconscious at that point anyway. I just wish I had some way to know beyond a doubt that she never knew anything or felt any pain.

The other thing that haunts me is that the EMT's got there very quickly (they used to hang out in a shopping center fairly close to the site), and so Emily and I were whisked off to the hospital almost immediately. From what Jon says, they did try to revive Hannah, but apparently she was dead when they got there. The thing that bothers me the most is that since she was dead, and there was no urgent need to remove her from the scene, that there had to have been some time where her body was still in the car seat in the crushed car, while they sorted things out. I do know they took her to the morgue at St. Joe's, while we were taken to U of M. I just wonder how long she was out there, before being taken out of the car and to the morgue. The thought of her being left in the car like that, even though there were people there who were trying to take care of the situation, is unbearable.

I think some of why this is coming up for me is because Emily is starting to ask and understand more about it, and also because in some way, if I know every single detail, have accounted for every single second and know all the details of Hannah's death and transportation to the morgue and so on, then somehow I have control over it. Like I've protected her somehow by at least knowing where she was at all times.

I just still can't believe she died. I don't know how in the world I can accept that or acknowledge it, because there HAS to be some way to undo this. And yet, the thing that hurts even more, is that if she somehow came back to us now, it would be a major readjustment -- and she'd be different. Two years older, taller, in a different stage of her life. And now she's missed things like our move, and Emily getting bigger and learning to talk and do things and heading off to preschool. The passage of time is taking Hannah farther away from us, and I hate that. I remember as spring came after the accident, that was horrifying, because that was incontrovertible proof that time WAS going on but Hannah wasn't. As long as it stayed winter and we stayed where we were, somehow maybe time could freeze and we could go back and undo this.

This is getting into scary territory emotionally. I honestly don't know if I can function and process this at the same time. It's far easier to subdue it and get caught up in everything else. I think that's why I've resisted journaling so far and instead hang out on Sybermoms or other boards or reading incessantly or talking with friends. And yet I wish people would talk to me about her, or let me talk, and not get uncomfortable.

It's hard to talk to Jon about it because then we both get sad, and it's very frightening to have BOTH of us in a bad place -- that makes me panic.

There isn't much else I can say, right now.