The Towel
I am not sure why, but I feel compelled to tell this story. I think I have already shared it, but for some reason it is heavy on my heart right now.
The day "it" happened...my husband and I were notified by phone. I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe the officer, I didn't believe Cassi's roommates who had found her, I just thought it was a terribly upsetting misunderstanding. It was February 2, 2014...a Sunday. People were telling me the most outrageous things. I had feared this for so many years, but I just couldn't believe it. At the hospital, in the basement, the Medical Examiner's office was closed, because it was Sunday. I was told Cassi was in the morgue, but I refused to believe it. I wanted to see, with my own eyes, that it was her and that she was really gone. Much drama and hysterics later, my family and friends finally convinced me to leave...they would not let me see her.
So I wanted to go to her apartment. Her roommates opened the door crying...I was still refusing to believe what they were telling me. I asked to see the exact spot where they had found her. They took me out the back door and to the edge of the patio. There was nothing there...I KNEW IT...Cassi had not shot herself, there was no blood...but then, I saw it, in the grass. Blood...still wet but coagulating. I screamed for a towel...and I just screamed. I fell to my knees, crying when someone handed me a white towel. I had to get the blood. I didn't know why, I just had to. I blotted it up, asked to see her room. Her room was familiar, all her things were there...again I started doubting she was gone. A couple of things caught my eye and told me what I didn't want to believe. A plastic bag with empty medication bottles and an open bottle of water...her purse...that did it...her purse should be with her.
I started believing it...but have yet to accept it...almost 2 months later.
I still have the towel. I don't know what to do with it. I can't throw it away. I put it in a drawer, out of site, but I know it's there...I hope someday I will figure it out. Why I needed it so badly...why I can't throw it away, but can't bear to look at it either.
This is such a weird journey.
The day "it" happened...my husband and I were notified by phone. I didn't really believe it. I didn't believe the officer, I didn't believe Cassi's roommates who had found her, I just thought it was a terribly upsetting misunderstanding. It was February 2, 2014...a Sunday. People were telling me the most outrageous things. I had feared this for so many years, but I just couldn't believe it. At the hospital, in the basement, the Medical Examiner's office was closed, because it was Sunday. I was told Cassi was in the morgue, but I refused to believe it. I wanted to see, with my own eyes, that it was her and that she was really gone. Much drama and hysterics later, my family and friends finally convinced me to leave...they would not let me see her.
So I wanted to go to her apartment. Her roommates opened the door crying...I was still refusing to believe what they were telling me. I asked to see the exact spot where they had found her. They took me out the back door and to the edge of the patio. There was nothing there...I KNEW IT...Cassi had not shot herself, there was no blood...but then, I saw it, in the grass. Blood...still wet but coagulating. I screamed for a towel...and I just screamed. I fell to my knees, crying when someone handed me a white towel. I had to get the blood. I didn't know why, I just had to. I blotted it up, asked to see her room. Her room was familiar, all her things were there...again I started doubting she was gone. A couple of things caught my eye and told me what I didn't want to believe. A plastic bag with empty medication bottles and an open bottle of water...her purse...that did it...her purse should be with her.
I started believing it...but have yet to accept it...almost 2 months later.
I still have the towel. I don't know what to do with it. I can't throw it away. I put it in a drawer, out of site, but I know it's there...I hope someday I will figure it out. Why I needed it so badly...why I can't throw it away, but can't bear to look at it either.
This is such a weird journey.
Replies
I would have done all the things you did. I would keep the towel forever. I would put it in a plastic bag in my laundry room (that\'s my personal space in the house). I wish I had a towel. My daughter was shot by a random drive-by shooter. I can\'t even have her clothes that she was wearing. I want them so much. I didn\'t even have much laundry of hers to keep.
This is early times for you (and me). I hope you are easy with yourself. Treat yourself, pamper yourself.
What has helped us is to stay open, love and let people love you. I\'ve ordered so many books from Amazon. Some help. Take it easy. You are not alone in this struggle. -Susan
As a mother who has also lost a child/children I can totally understand why you are keeping the towel. It holds a sacred part of your daughter. Keep it as long as you want.....maybe even forever. I would too. You may never look at it again, but having it seems right for you now. We do what we can when we feel we are able.
In April & May it will be 6 years since I lost my sons, Jeremy & Chad. The funeral home made a video with photographs I let them use. They were some of my favorites...ones that could tell a story about them just by looking at the photos. I saw the videos at the funeral home during the visitation. But I have not been able to watch them since. In a way I want to, but mostly I don\'t....not yet. Coming here to FMO I am learning how important it is to take care of ourselves. So for now I am honoring my feelings & I feel ok about it.
Whatever you choose is ok dear sister of the heart.
Keep the towel - I have a storage unit full of Jennifer\'s stuff that she touched - I am currently carrying a bandana in my purse that smells like her. I hold it sometimes, take it with me because in some weird way, that bandana is her. So keep whatever you need to, want to because our hearts are comforted by it. So wish I was there to hug you. ((hugs)) Vicki
Don\'t make any decisions until your heart tells you the answer. So painful, so unbelievable, I\'m again, so sorry you were thrust on this journey. Sending you and Cassi so much love!
When you\'re ready to part with it, you\'ll know for sure. Until then, just keep it until you are\"ready\". These things are tough! Love, Donna
I don\'t think anyone understands what it is like to lose a child. Our reactions surprise even us. I still have things of Lisa that mean nothing to anyone but me. I agree with Lynette. Listen to your heart.
Come here any time you feel the need to tell your story - it is an important part of coming to terms with the horror of it all.
Love to you and Cassi.
Marlene
Until you KNOW, do not get rid of the towel. And when you think you know...wait another year...then ask yourself again if you\'re ready.
There is no rhyme or reason to most of what I did with Kala\'s stuff. I did not get her clothes...my best friend did (her husband is a high ranking police officer) and she, with only good intentions and love for me, threw them away.
I got rid of \"important, valuable\" things, and yet held on to her deodorant until just recently. Made absolutely no sense, but it\'s what I did.
Thank you for sharing this with us. I know how hard and how healing it can be.
Much love and tight heart hugs~~
You most likely have never seen Mel Gibson\'s \"The Passion of The Christ\" but what you describe about cleaning up the blood so strongly reminds me of one scene. Jesus is terribly scourged (the Shroud of Turin, which has been validated as not a fake, shows enormous physical damage and most likely serious internal damage from the scourging). Mary is approached by the wife of Pontius Pilate who is bringing her clean towels (this is of course anecdotal and may not actually have happened, but you and I both know Mary would have needed to clean her son\'s blood off that spot). She mops up the blood with the towels.
Keep the towel. Put it in a bag that can be compressed (with air) so it will not deteriorate from the biological matter. Then put it away. You may never look at it again, and that is just fine. But this is not something you can discard.
I had a police officer in my home on Wednesday, March 2, at about 5:00PM after I discovered my kid had bought a shotgun with my credit card at about 3:00PM. I called 911, I told them she was \"out there with a shotgun, please don\'t shoot her, she\'s going to use it on herself\". Every single police agency in this county, as well as every single volunteer EMT and Fireman, were out looking for her car. We\'re talking hundreds of people here. I don\'t know the exact time when the officer in my home got the radio call that she had been found. All I remember is that he came toward me, he extended his left arm to wrap around me, and he said, \"Jill I\'m so sorry.\" And I learned later (her car was found on the east side of Macy\'s in the Mid Hudson Valley Mall, mere yards from the point of purchase) that many dozens of police cars and emergency vehicles descended on that Mall because they pinged my cell phone (which was in her car). The officer who forced open the door to her Jeep thought she was asleep: the damage, which should have been enormous, was not. I was told that every man there wept.
This particular horror is just about as bad as it gets. The only worse thing I have heard is from two Moms who found their children hanging, dead, in their homes. The agony of the moment of death is excruciating for us, sister. But the truth is, there is no agony. The agony is what causes it. The method of ending life is instantaneous, there is no pain. We are the ones who have the pain.
My daughter left me a beautiful letter. She had stuffed it down into her jeans (I guess she figured her head would explode, but it did not). She told me I was \"the light of her life\" and went on to explain the horror she had been experiencing for so long and would not admit to (to me, to her psychiatrists, to her therapists). I remember one sentence quite clearly: \"Medications and that stupid delve into the spirit world have done irreparable damage.\" I often say to her, even now, you want to know what IRREPARABLE DAMAGE IS? LOOK AT ME.
Don\'t throw anything away. Put it all in storage if you must. You are in the beginning of this agonizing journey. Make no sudden decisions. Don\'t change anything on impulse. And hang on. I\'m here if you need me.
Keep the towel....you will know when the time is right to do something with it. To this day I have Billy\'s drivers license in my wallet. Why I don\'t know but it is there and there it will stay. Dan just saw it the other day - from the back - and wondered whose license I had - told him Billy\'s - he just said \"ok\". And that was that - no explanation needed. Hugs, Ann
Oh Ann...I also have my baby\'s drivers license as well as her blood donor card...I taught her to always donate blood...and Jill, yes of course I saw that movie. The most painful part, to me, was when Jesus fell and Mary had a flashback to when he was a toddler and fell...she was able to comfort him as a child...the agony of any mother breaks my heart...broke my heart even before, well, you know.
I understand the need to keep the towel as it\'s a tangible and visible extension of your daughter. You keep it as long as you need to dear Gina and if it\'s a life time so be it.
I remember trying to smell everything that I could to to remember my son and his hockey bag was filled with him and I believe the entire hockey team. :) Only just this last few weeks were we able to donate those things and we kept his number 13 jersey and I have his Tae Kwon Do suit with all of his belts. Those are safely packed away and go with us without hesitation. I have a lock of his hair in a beautiful locket that my husband bought for me that I wear when I crave a closeness to him. These things are for me and for my healing and are meaningful.
Gentle care as you make your way dear Gina and remember your beloved daughter who will never be forgotten. Hopeful that today brings a moment of pause because this path can become so exhausting.
With love,
XO Joanie
Gina,
I think we all have had to have something with us (or still do) that keeps us close to our child, For me, it was a simple piece of hardware that my son used daily on his job. I kept it in my car as well as a part of a t-shirt that was found near the wreckage. It was not his. Probably one that was used to wipe his hands, but I kept a strip of it in my purse for the longest time. I never got anything that was on his person from that day. He was burned to death trapped in the wreckage of the vehicle that day. No cell phone, no wallet, not a piece of clothing, watch or even the necklace he always wore...just 37 cents that was charred...and that has been with the attorneys since they were retained, with the letter from the Coroner letting me know what was contained in the envelope, in case it would be upsetting to me.
Ya think!??
I did get many things that were important to me and my other kids from his apartment. But as I sit here in Florida, I have very little with me...it is all stored in my garage in Washington state...I often wonder what I will think or how I will feel when I am united with my things (and his). It has been 3 years that I have been in Florida caretaking my mother and dad. The person I was when I packed and repacked those things is not the same...how could I be?
I understand how surreal it is to hear that you child is no more...for a long time it seemed like he was just out of town working and did not come home...I guess that is not far from the truth...although my heart knows the weight of his absence. He was my youngest child...I miss him/
Gina, I read a comment you wrote about the longing for dreams of Cassi or signs. I remember feeling the same way. I was envious and perhaps jealous of others and the stories they told of their signs. I did have 1 vivid dream of my son about 8 weeks after his passing, in which I fully believe that he was conveying his good-byes and that he was ok. Later I had several signs in pictures that knocked my socks off...but I wanted you to know that it is the small things (signs) that mean the most...his football number was #5...I see that number everywhere, I wake at that time and so much else goes with that number. Daren was quite the eater...so food is sometimes a sign to me...I like the term \"winks\"...anything that lets you know that they are there...flashes a memory, emotion, or a smile.
In the raw stages of grief...you are wide open and so raw. Your whole being and fiber misses your child...I remember feeling like I was an amputee that would still feel their leg or was learning how to function without a vital part...I know you understand this. I had unreasonable expectations of myself...wanting to be \"making progress\" and knowing that others had expectations of me, too. and I was letting everyone down... BULLCRAP!
I surpressed my pain (or tried to) and this made me physically ill...it is gong to come out somewhere and somehow...for me it was my health..panic attacks, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure,...later other self-destructive behaviors/actions and thinking.
This is all a personal journey, Gina, but that does not mean that you are alone...we are hear to listen, perhaps hold a \"light\" so that you can find your way...but you need to allow yourself whatever time you need...you are on a different path--for sure not one of your (or our) choosing, but none the less a path...I wish I could say that their is a detour or a fast-track around this...there is not. It seems in retrospect for me, that the best way isdirectly through it and to allow yourself the time, the permission to grieve as you need to.. There are many women here that understand your grief and are here to support you. I like that you write...I like that you reach out and are not afraid to share...these is the basic tools that you need.
And whenever you want to meet, let me know and we will do it. You have my number...call anytime...I listen well.
AnnM
Keep it for as long as needed. It doesn\'t matter why. We all have those things we hold onto. For me I wear a bracelet that was Jeremy\'s necklace. One of his tshirts sits on top of my dresser. Hugs to you. Angela
Keep it for as long as needed. It doesn\'t matter why. We all have those things we hold onto. For me I wear a bracelet that was Jeremy\'s necklace. One of his tshirts sits on top of my dresser. Hugs to you. Angela
My son,aged 24,died in a car accident on 5th feb 2007.i still have the blood stained jacket he was wearing.ive tucked it away but its still there.i also have his wallet..with everything in it the way it was.
It will get better for you...but as they say..it has to get worse before it gets better.hugs.