It had been a few days since I had Hailey, and my mother planned her funeral. I don’t remember anything about those few days honestly, except that I slept a lot, and cried even more. When I woke up the morning of her funeral, my head was pounding. What was even more strange was that when I laid down, since I thought this was a stress headache or a headache that you get when you cry too much, the pain went away immediately. If I sat up, intense, searing pain. Like my brain was being literally stabbed. Lay down, nothing. Very strange, but I pushed it aside because today was too important to let a headache get in my way.
When we arrived at the funeral home, everyone, and I mean everyone, was there. Family I hadn’t seen in years, so many friends from school, their parents, people from church, everyone. I was seated in a chair in a little room off to the side of the viewing room, and people filed in to shake my hand, give me a hug, and offer their condolences. I don’t remember much of that either. The pain from the brain-stabbing was back, only much more intense. I was crying from the pain. I was grieving my daughter, but at this point the pain was more the culprit than I’d like to admit. I couldn’t think about anything, not my anguish, or the people surrounding me, nothing but pain. I really wish I could remember all the amazing people that showed up to be there for me. Before her funeral could even begin, I had to beg my dad to take me to the ER. I couldn’t take it anymore. I missed my beautiful daughter’s funeral.
Once I arrived at the ER, it was hurry up and wait. Chris and my father came with me- that’s who I remember, others may have been there or come later, but I remember my two guys there with me the most. Chris held me while I writhed in pain, now even when I tried to lay down the pain was immense. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. I wanted to yell at the nurses to hurry the HELL up because I was missing my daughter’s funeral. But I couldn’t even speak, except to moan. Finally the doctor took me back, and finally my diagnosis: apparently the anesthetist, when pulling out the fluid and medicine from my spine, had pulled too much, and what I was told was that I had no fluid to hold my brain up above my spine, and this of course, was causing intense pain. When I have told friends this story before, there is a name for it, and apparently it’s more common than one would like to think. It hurts as much as it sounds like it would. They had to again, bend me over and put another big needle in my back. Once they did that, I had almost immediate relief.
It was too late for me to say goodbye to Hailey. I had to go home and rest. I never really got to say goodbye. It still hurts me today. Chris’s aunt took some really great pictures of her graveside for me, of all the beautiful flowers people sent, and I mean to tell you they were gorgeous. Someone gave a teddy bear bouquet, and someone even sent a little horsey bouquet. I still have all the cards and notes from the flowers that everyone gave us that day, in Hailey’s box, along with her pictures. My mother’s church, Decatur Baptist, donated Bibles in honor of Hailey, that would be distributed around the country in hotels. Her name is in those bibles, In Memory of Hailey Elisabeth Lacy. That was so wonderful. I always check the Bibles in hotels now to see if maybe one day I’ll see her name. So many amazing people showed up for us that day. Thank you, if you were there. Thank you to the ends of the earth.
We had New Years Eve to celebrate next, and Chris was invited, much to my surprise. My dad’s toast was, ” I love you guys, and I’m sorry this happened. But if you ever do this again, I’ll kill you guys.” Now, I need you to understand two things. One, my dad has a really funny and sometimes dark sense of humor, and often he uses it to lighten tense or stressful situations. And two, this was a hard time for everyone in my family. My dad had such high hopes for me, for my life, and this Chris fellow had almost just dashed any hope I had of college, a future, etc, in his mind. Everything his daughter had just gone through was due to our teenage stupidity. He was right, of course. But sometimes things just happen because they happen. Being a parent now I can fully understand his anger and his sorrow, and what he was going through. Both my parents were brokenhearted, and had every right to be. They had raised me better than this. I was not the girl that gets pregnant in high school, and really no girl should be labeled as the “type”. We are just kids. All my friends were doing the same thing Chris and I were doing, and they were doing it with multiple people- they just didn’t happen to get pregnant. We were completely stupid, as teenagers tend to be. And my dad was trying his best,the best way he knew how to convince us not to do this completely stupid thing again, by putting the fear of God into us, while also trying to be slightly funny. Still, his words proved to be more prophetic than funny.
I went to my post-natal doctor,and they prescribed me birth control, just to make doubly sure that if we continued on like we had before, at least we wouldn’t go through this again.
Things started to get back to normal. I was back in school. Chris and I went to my junior prom together. I wore a yellow two piece dress, and I felt beautiful. We took pictures beside the pond at his families’ home. Hailey’s death had brought us closer together. We had been through some major life ordeals together at 16 and 17 years old. We still slept together. But this time it was less scary, I was on birth control, right?
Four months after Hailey’s funeral, I was pregnant again. Sometimes things just happen because they happen.
Please check in tomorrow for the Part 4! Thank you everyone for your support!
MorningLori 