I am sitting by a large window, looking down on the ocean as it passes by. Brian & I are on a weekend cruise on the Carnival Fantasy. He is relaxing in the cabin as I check my mail and catch up on blogging. We left Thursday afternoon and get home tomorrow. We sailed to Nassau in the Bahamas. It is the first time we have had time alone since Kierra's death. The kids are withTerri & Dwight. We have no worries about them, other than missing them and wondering if they are behaving.
We have met some nice people, even had breakfast this morning with some people from Plattsburgh, New York! What a small world. They even knew some of the people I knew and we caught up on all the goings on. It was nice to revisit that time in our lives.
We have a good set of people at our dinner table. We weren't sure if we would go to the dining room for dinner, but we have and have enjoyed it. But it has been odd. Everyone shares where they are from and how many children they have, etc. We have shared that, but I stop short of telling anyone about Kierra's death. I don't want to see that look on their face, I don't want to talk about it with strangers. I want to be amoung the anonymous, not the ones who's daughter was killed. Brian & I have thought about her and talked about her alot.
We didn't go on any planned excursions in Nassau. We took a buggy ride and walked around by ourselves. Even did some shopping (of course!). We found the most adorable dress for Alexa at a specialty Linen shop, you will see it in their Easter pictures. It reminded me of a pink one Kierra's Gramma Judy got her when she was little. Alexa's is purple with hand smocking and embroidery on the bodice. We couldn't resist! We got a few souvenirs for family & friends. It was a beautiful day. We even came back and took a nap!
We have a couple pictures we had taken, one at dinner and one portrait. I will e-mail them to everyone when I get them loaded on the PC. Today has been a lazy day. We went to the Disco for a little while last night. I got to dance with the group we have at our dinner table, so that let Brian off the hook!
It has been so good for us to have this time. It is such a relief to have nothing or no one to distract us from each other. No schedules to follow, no need to do anything. To only be with each other and renew that connection.
And now I am actually ready to go home. It is easy to physically get away, but much harder to mentally "get away". I have enjoyed myself, and enjoyed my time with Brian. There are still those moments when Kierra is front & center, for both of us, and we can tell just by looking at each other. We share what we are thinking and just let it be what it is, our grief, reminding us that it has changed us. While we are just anonymous people on this ship, our grief knows us as well as we know each other. And it knows how to get our attention just as easily as the twins & Hunter do when they want to. So even here, we are not alone, although we have been able to set it aside for awhile. And we realize it will always be there, like an extra piece of luggage we carry wherever we go. And that is not as hard to accept as it was a few months ago.
So I will go pack it up along with the rest of our luggage, and tomorrow we will be home..
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