I've been assuming that the only people who read my blog are a couple of folks that I've known for years and who know me inside and out. Lately I've been aware of some others reading it who might be wondering about some of the things I have alluded to. I've tried several times to write "the story" here, but I just fall apart and can't. I did, however, write a very bare-bones version for another group of people and I thought I'd copy it here. I hope you don't mind the recycling.
My daughter Nicki was 18 when she died. She was also 8 months pregnant. She died from a complication of her pregnancy called "eclampsia." (Some of the older folks might remember something called "toxemia" that they used to talk about pregnant women getting. Same thing.) She was under a doctor's care and had been hospitalized twice in the months before she died, but she was doing pretty well. On a Saturday night she said to my husband (I was out of town, visiting Steph) that her feet were swelling up again, but she had an appointment to see the doctor on Monday, so she would just wait until then. When my husband got up the next morning, he found her. She had got up to use the bathroom in the night, went into a seizure and died.
December 2008 marked the 18th anniversary of her death. Hard to imagine that much time has gone by. I think of her every day, wondering what she would make of things happening in the news or on the soap opera we used to watch together. Some days are harder than others, often for quite odd reasons.
One of the questions that people often have is about eclampsia and what the cause is. Nobody knows for sure. There are a lot of possibilities, but none have been proven to be correct. That's one of the most difficult things for me. It's hard to accept that she's gone without knowing why. I don't suppose I ever will.
I don't have any other children. I had an only child by choice, and, even if I'd known that I was going to lose her, I probably would have made the same decision.
I don't mean to be depressing and maybe nobody has wondered. But in case anybody has, that's it.
5 comments:
I'm so sorry. More than a dicease, it's hard not to become the death of your child. At dark moments, every parent must think of it. I worked with a man, who backed his truck over his little girl and killed her. He returned to work after a few weeks and his hair had turned white. What had happened was that the stress had caused his hair to fall out, but white hair is more tenacious and that was what was left.
Thanks, Marc. Yeah, a big part of me is just gone and there's no getting it back. I guess that realization is a major part of what they call acceptance.
Such a tragedy for your co-worker. I can't imagine how horrible that would be.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Deni. I'd never seen a picture of her. She was a lovely girl.
Thank you, Lynette. This picture was taken in January 1989, just about two years before she died. She was going to the Winter Formal at school.
Maybe I'll start a semi-regular thing of telling Nicki stories. It's much easier to write about what happened when she was little than it was to write this one.
I'd never seen that picture. So Nicki! I was telling Lynette about how sweet she was, naive yet wise, childlike yet deep. That picture reveals all of that.
I think regular entries about her is a wonderful idea!
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