There are moments, just moments when I want to run. Run.
I feel the anxiety growing inside of me, wanting to take over. A voice pleas in desperation, “just run.” I want to grab Ariyana and Afshin and run away to escape from the pain. I just want to be with them, to be safe, to be free of this pain.
As I write this I feel a little guilt. I am happy and I am so blessed in my life – in what I had and in what I have now. But the truth is, this isn’t the life that I had imagined. I miss Hamid and it hurts that he is not here to watch his children grow up. I remember the day it all began. I see him smiling in the ER. Fear suddenly flashes across his face as he tells me that something is terribly wrong. A few hours later I watch the ventilator mechanically raise his chest up and down. I hear myself telling the surgeon, “Yes, you have my permission to do emergency surgery.” Numbly, I hear “stage iv…3-6 months.” I am pregnant. Just run. I need to run.
Yes, every once in while this feeling of running hits me. It is like a fight or flight reaction and to survive I feel that I just need to protect Ariyana and Afshin and go. But I know that no matter how far I go, I cannot escape it. I guess it is normal, a part of grieving but I guess I feel that there is an expectation to be strong, to be happy. I am both. I found love again; I have two amazing children. I have someone who walks beside me on this journey, someone who loves my children, someone who knows what it means to lose a loved one. But even still, there are moments when I need to fall down and acknowledge the pain and then wipe my wounds and choose to stand again.
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