still-ness

i still can't go to sleep before 10pm.
eliza's last medication dose was at 10pm for most of her life. i'm afraid i'm programmed to stay up until 10pm--and no later--for the rest of mine.

i still am shocked at how dark and quiet our bedroom is at night.
no feeding pump whirring and glowing, no pulse oximeter beeping and lighting the whole room. "our" bedroom, that being eliza's, sam's and mine. luke always called it just eliza's.

i still forget that i can run errands, make playdate plans, stay out in the afternoons.
eliza was always in bed by 3 or 4pm to start her 18-hour feeding time. which meant luke and i never went anywhere in the afternoons. at all. thankfully, my neighbors have always been gracious to share forgotten dinner ingredients!

i still think of the passenger's side back door of the van as luke's door and the driver's side door as eliza's.
you know the little keychain clicker? the passenger's side back door button is bigger than the driver's side door. get it? bigger button for my bigger kid. that's the only way i could ever remember.

i still can't get used to the idea that our whole family can go out together all day on a weekend.
it was always "divide and conquer" around here: one of us out with busy luke, one of us home with sleepy, snuggly eliza.

i still notice when it's 2pm.
meds. always at 2pm. no matter where we were.

i still think friendly hospital parking garage attendants are a blessing and a gift.
just met one today, at my appointment at the hospital. i hate the hospital, and really hate the parking garage (i once upon a time wrote about my experience with parking garages over on eliza's blog. but i just went looking for that post to link it here, and i can't do it. can't read through it all now. maybe i'll find it again one of these days. or maybe you remember it.). but the stories i could tell about parking garage attendants...hugely generous, out-of-nowhere gifts, sweet words of comfort and kindness, prayers offered for our family...yes, parking garage attendants.

i still find miniature purple and pink hair ties in coat pockets and purses.
really. still.

i still am amazed at how quickly luke and i can get out the door to school in the morning.
suffice it to say, the routine has changed dramatically from the wake-up-and-bathe-eliza days. it was a long process, even as streamlined as i had managed to make it.

i still have closets full of medical supplies.
i gave away tons and tons of equipment and supplies in the weeks after eliza died. thousands of dollars worth. i thought i had gotten rid of it all. but i still find stashed-away stashes...still.

i still forget that any babysitter will do just fine.
which was certainly not the case with eliza. mercifully, we have several very generous doctor friends (and a few brave non-doctor-but-grown-up family members and friends) who would stay with her on the very rare occasion when we both needed to be out at the same time. suffice it to say, a teenager would not have been a good fit.

a nearly-whole year later. still.