Remembering

I am writing this today because I am hoping it will help me. Help me to quit reliving the awful memories of our tragedy. Maybe by making a list of the memories I have it will help me move forward and remember more of the good memories.

Things I remember:

* looking at the beach bag with Kennedy's beary in it and thinking shes been away from that for awhile, something is wrong.
* searching the condo grounds for my baby, never realizing she was in the water
* having the terrible feeling something was wrong, while calling 911
* seeing the police walk in to the condo lobby
* giving my phone to the police officer, that was the only place I had a picture of Kennedy
* seeing the officer walk back to me, he didn't have to say anything
* falling, crying, screaming, helped back up by my sore arm by the police officer
* getting separated from Joe
* seeing Joe agonize over the possibility that Kennedy was lost
* seeing Joe get the news
* making frantic phone calls to family
* the painfully long ride to the hospital, me in one police car Joe in another, the police getting lost, me begging them to turn on their lights so we could get there faster. They never did.
* waiting in the ER for the nurse to take us back to see Kennedy and identify her
* seeing my baby on that stretcher, tubes everywhere, I was trying desperately to warm her up. I laid on her.
* watching Joe scream at the doctors and thinking they were really taking it well
* answering more police questions, questions I did not know the answer to
* making the painful decision to leave the hospital without our daughter
* somehow getting back to the condo, it was filled with death, packing and loading the car.
* driving back to Helena. shaking, Joe couldn't drive, I did it. Every bridge we passed I battled with myself to not run into it to end this misery and see my baby again. I held her beary the whole way home. Talking to Heilah and crying with her for the last hour of the drive.
* walking in the door of our house that was filler with Kennedy's toys and memories.
* hearing the music, our only comfort to this day
* the steady stream of friends then family (arriving from PA) that came to console us.
* falling asleep, after my dad tricked me into a sleeping pill, waking up to a priest and a nun and thinking "oh good I'm dead". No not really, It was Sister Madeline and Father Weiss. I went back to sleep, it was too much.
* Uncle Larry asking me if I ate, my answer "a piece of cantelope" it was then I realized that it was days since I ate.
* funeral plans, picking a casket, creamation vs. burial, decisions only Joe and I could make
* going to Stein Mart in a daze, picking up 3 black dresses (sizes unknown, somehow they all fit), a pink dress shirt for Joe and a tie, buying them then sitting on the sidewalk waiting for Mom and Todd to pick me back up.
* Heather helping me pick which dress to wear for the viewing. Aunt Linda ironing Joes shirt.
* the heartwrenching procession to the funeral home then to the church. Traffic stopped for us, police escorted us like it was one of their own. Amazing!
* The viewing and funeral-hugging and crying, seeing Kennedy in a casket.
* the physical pain of missing Kennedy
* through it all I remember sitting on my perch on the couch and just having the world go on without me.

I have no idea how we managed to do everything, how my family found their way to the hotel, how people found out about the accident. So many unanswered questions.