Fond Memory and Healing

Again and again with nonstop thought about Nita. Today we went to Café Ole and all I could think about was Nita. Al and I sat there talking pleasantly to one another and I simply remembered. We were there looking at one another and eating and chatting about what…I really don’t quite remember.

When we walked up to the restaurant doors I remarked to Al that I only think about Nita about 50 times a day. I understand the process of grief but it still doesn’t quite help me understand her death. My faith and my humanness collide endlessly as I try repeatedly to understand that life is going to be okay without her.

That day we picked Al up from the airport sweet Nita was there. My husband is such a wonderful big brother. To Café Ole we went, a family tradition that was birthed by some tradition we started when my mother comes to visit. Al wanted to show his little sisters how ‘we roll.’ I recall the two of them, Nita and Lou Lou sitting across that big booth table with us. They loved the food. Nita said she would have to get her boyfriend to bring her there because the food was so much better than the place where he and his family always went when they are in town.

What did we hope to accomplish by going there again today? I am not sure, for me I can say that it was a way to remember her again perhaps. She was so beautiful and happy, and filled with the same old fiery fun that made her so special. I regret that she was so much younger than the rest and I had not learned to appreciate her so much because she was just the baby. One of the young ones that still made mistakes and bad choices, and all the other things that young people do.

Listen to me, I sound like some old lady but it was difficult to appreciate her because she was so young and distant in some ways. Nita idolized her big brother and loved him because she was proud of the man he’d become. How did she feel about me? I am not really sure but I can say with a clean conscience that I was proud of her and one of the last conversations we had was about how proud I was of her and to keep up the good work and finish with her schooling goals.

Sweet, sweet, girl who touched so many lives. One thing that I will say is that she was sort of like me in one way. She touched people on an individual level. She took on her brothers and sisters one by one and made each of them feel special.

So, what did I accomplish today? I was able to stare death in the face again and tell it that it cannot steal me away down the road of grief and despair forever. I told death today that people live on, and we can walk down some of the same old pathways and remember those we’ve lost without being overcome by the ravages of what death brings. I know that it is not a one-day process and I won’t wake up in the morning not remembering. Today only about ten times did I debate in my head about her being murdered. It sounds so obscure on the page, almost as obscure as it sounds when it is voiced to another.

We will all survive this time and over and over again I keep thinking that I want to write something special about her. What do I write? What will best help my little nephew to remember or acquaint him with who his mother was to each of us? She touched so many people individually that I don’t think I could ever collect all of the stories.

Earlier today, I sat on my porch and wondered what I would write about today. What can one say? I believe in a God. I believe that bad things happen to good people. I told Al today that it was remarkable that Nita had lost so many babies before my nephew, at least three previous miscarriages that I know of. Maybe that was her one HUGE purpose in life was to give life to her son.