Replenish

Chapter 2

Sunday, August 31, 2014
(4 days Later)

~~~Janelle~~~

August the fucking 31st. Words can't express how much I HATE this day. I had told myself that this year I would be strong and get through this day without crying, but deep down I knew that— that was just some bullshit I was telling myself to make me feel better. Last night pretty much set the tone for today. We decided to do something for the anniversary of the death of my dad and Marcus.
It was going great, my mama even decided to pull out photo albums.

For the most part, I was handling everything pretty good. 
We got to a photo of Marcus holding Ariah after she was born. I smiled at the memory, and managed to keep it together because I knew if Ariah saw me crying she would start.
Thankfully, we got pass the picture with no problems. After passing a few more pictures we came across one of Marcus, Ariah, and I.

On this picture I was laying across his lap while he held Ariah in the air playing with her. It was her 1st birthday. My baby girl was just cheesing away.
All you saw were her gums. The next picture, which ended up being the last picture in the album, was one of Marcus and Ariah sleeping. She was laying on his chest while he had his arm wrapped around her.

Everybody went on and on cooing about how adorable they looked. After looking through all the photo albums, Jonathan took the kids outside to play one last time before it got dark.  They were having a ball, but that was short lived after my niece Jayla ran inside telling me that Ariah was crying.

I went outside and sure enough Ariah was crying her eyes out. I asked her what was wrong and her words crushed my heart. She looked at me with pain in her eyes and asked why can't she have a daddy. I pulled her into me and held her as she asked why do her cousins and friends get to have a daddy and she can't.
I was stuck I couldn't say anything. I knew she would be bothered about it but not this soon. I mean what was I supposed to say. How do you tell a 5 year old the reason her daddy isn't here is because some lowlife thugs decided his life didn't mean anything and took it?

Teary-eyed, shocked, and overwhelmed I looked  to Jordan for help. He picked her up and took her inside to my mom to calm her down. Justin, being the only other person close to me, opened his arms for me to come to him. The minute his arms wrapped around me I broke down. I cried because I realized I couldn't answer the questions my baby asked because I was still searching for the answers myself. I still questioned why did this happen? I often found myself wondering what life would be like if they hadn't gone out that night. Sadly that's something I'll never know the answer to.

After all that transpired everyone pretty much decided to go ahead and leave since we'd already eaten. It was just my mom and her kids and grand kids. We set the kids up in the den to watch movies and then we all went to the living room to discuss what happened.

After talking to my mom, we found out she had been watching my brother Jonathan play with his daughter, Jayla. She saw how happy they looked playing together. Then she realized that that's something she doesn't have. That made my heart pain even more.

Having to deal with what happened yesterday as well as today being "the day", I needed to go to church this morning so that's what we did. Now we're at the end of service just socializing with fellow church members. Mama was talking with one of our newer church members, Ms. Shelia and her three grand daughters. They'd just recently moved here from New Orleans to be with her sons.