One year later

One year later...

I feel like the world should stop to honour my pain. Not just my country, the whole world. Not for a moment, but for the whole day.  Banks should close. Mail should stop. Even the mighty Walmart should shut their doors, send their people home so we all can put our pajamas on, wrap our arms around our middles and rock in grief and pain and loss.

The sun rises. The world turns. The mail comes and Walmart opens as scheduled. How can life go on as normal when my boy will never come home again.

It isn't just me, though I carry my grief alone. Mothers and fathers everywhere who have lost a child. Drug overdoses. Suicide. Car accidents. Miscarriages. Cancer. In service to our country. The list is long. The outcome is the same. Our babies are dead. They will not come home this Christmas, or ever again. 

Yet we live in a world that doesn't honour our pain. We are supposed to get out of bed. We are supposed to put on pants and go to work. We are supposed to wish others a merry Christmas. We smile and nod while a voice, our voice, is screaming inside our head. It isn't fair. This can't be real.

I wear his sweater. I wrap my arms around my stomach to hold in my pain. I rock myself in bed at night while tears seep out of closed eyes. I talk to God. I talk to him. I hurt in ways I can't even begin to express. And then I get up, put on pants and go on like nothing has changed.

But I will never be the same again.

The Voice

There is a voice, on the other side, that sings to me.

Calling so softly, so sweetly.

It is the first thing I hear when I awake.

And the last thing I hear as I drift off to sleep.

The voice lures me.

I yearn to trust it, to believe in the sweet song of safety and happily ever after.

But my fears run deep.

And my walls stand high.

Days, turn into weeks, turn into month and the song doesn't falter.

It calls to me, through my tears.

It calls to me, when I'm lost.

It calls to me, in the dark.

Some days I rage.

Some days I pout.

Some days I turn my back and walk away.

Yet the voice is undaunted. It sings to me, calling so softly, so sweetly.

Tempting me to trust.

Soothing my fears.

Wearing down the walls and my resistance.

Until nothing more stands between us.

Hope in the Darkness

I have sunk into the darkness of grief. It is a lonely place. I know there are others here but I can't reach them and I don't even want to try.

In the dark I am silent and alone.  There are no words. The darkness saps my strength. It swallows me whole, pressing down on me, stealing my energy, my enthusiasm, my joy.

There is no escape, though I tried to run. I don't try anymore. I am content here, in the darkness, alone with my sorrow and my silence. 

Once, I sat alone in the dark and learned to love my demons. Now, I sit alone in the dark and learn to love myself. A broken heart is a beautiful thing, for it means it once loved, so greatly that loss could crack it wide open.

I cry in the dark, slow silent tears and great heaving sobs. Quietly into my pillow. Loud and ugly in the shower. Alone in my car. An ever present ache in the dark. A hurt so great that I don't understand how I can stand up under it. I don't know where the strength comes that carries it every day. Yet every day,  I pick it up when I awake, I carry it, throughout the day, and I fall asleep with it,  wrapped around me like a blanket.

Pain, sorrow, darkness. Mine and mine alone.

Then, one day, there was hope in the darkness. Bright, white, shining hope.  It sparkled so brightly I was drawn to it. I fell to my knees in front of it. I reached out a hand to touch it.  Such beauty,  kindness, goodness, compassion and acceptance. I sobbed, on my knees, with my head bowed.

For a moment, as I knelt on the earth, I was comforted. There is a beacon of hope in the darkness,  pulling me onward. I may not see the path. I may not know my way, but I will continue on. Eventually, the darkness will lighten. Eventually the ache will ease. Eventually, I will lift my face to the light.  Until then, I will hold on, with all of my might because I know that I'll be alright.

"Give me hope in the darkness, that I will see the light, 'cause oh that gave me such a fright. I will hold on, with all of my might just promise me we'll be alright." ~Mumford and Sons

The Tie That Binds

There is a thin red thread that connects us.

It was forged eons ago, in another time and place,  when the stories were different but the emotions were the same.

I didn't know.  Neither did you. We both walked our paths, contentedly, unknowingly.  Until one day those paths crossed. 

Oh, there you are.

Then we knew. The tie that binds tugged at our hearts, pulling us into an awkward dance. In, out, together, apart. Like puppets on a string we reacted to things felt.

We loved. We hurt. We laughed. We argued. We danced, in and out, back and forth,  push and pull, together and apart. Until the adventure wasn't worth it anymore.

Then, at exactly the right moment, our paths diverged, pulling us in opposite directions.  Leaving us with memories, a little heartache and a red thread, tying us together.

You and me, bound for eternity by the tie that binds.

Today I Have Failed

I tried to be all things to all people.

I went to work even though they told me it was too soon, juggling three jobs and teaching yoga.  I went back to school certain I could manage a full course load. I took care of a baby that wasn't mine. Four, five, six nights a week because I can't let people down. Because I am Super Mom and I can do it all.

I was determined to carry on with my life. Commitments. People. Trips here and there. Walking through every day with a broken heart.

"I need help." I said.

"I can't do this." I cried.

"It's not fair." I whined.

But no one listened.

And then I broke. Shattered.

It was my fault. Everyone angry with me.

Because I failed at being kind and patient while I grieve.

I failed at juggling school, work, kids and life.

I failed at crying pretty tears.

I failed at being polite and proper.

I failed at swallowing my hurt.

I failed at living up to the expectations of others.

I failed at taking care of everyone while neglecting myself.

I failed as a mother, wife, friend, daughter, student.

But I didn't fail at grieving. I didn't fail at loving. I didn't fail me. Only you, out there. You whose life has gone on with barely a hitch while my life is destroyed. You who asked more of me than  anyone should ever have to give.  I have failed you.

Today, I have failed and I'm okay with that.

Today I am Sorry

I have nothing left to say but I am sorry and I love you.

I have tried but I am only human.  I am fallible.

And I'm so sorry.

For the hurt I've caused, for the anger and resentment, for the guilt and the shame, for harsh words and hurt feelings, I apologize.

I'm sorry I could not live up to expectations.

I am only human.

I have been wrong and will be again.

I have lost my temper and my patience.

I have been rude and unkind.

I have lied and made bad choices.

It doesn't mean I don't love you. It does mean I am human. 

Forgive me my failings. Offer me compassion. Love me anyways. 

For I am not perfect, I am human.

I am afraid and often lonely.  I am tired and overwhelmed.  I am sad and broken.

But I am doing my best. I am trying so hard.

I am sorry that my best isn't enough. I'm sorry that my efforts fall short. I am sorry I have disappointed you.

I am sorry. I miss you. And I still love you. 

Today I am Silent

Day after day I sit in silence. There are no more words, nothing left to say, just an unbearable, aching loss.

No phone calls. No Facebook posts. No blog posts or journaling. Just silence.

I'm fine. I say it with a smile. Because I'm done talking about it. The world has moved on, dragging me along with it. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months and I no longer know how many Mondays I've woken up without him.

I go through the motions.

Until something hits me. Hard and fast and suddenly I'm retching again, like I was during the first week. Tears often surprise me. A song, a place, a memory, and the void rises up and swallows me.

I learned long ago that I retreat inward when I hurt. I am often silent in my pain.

Now I have nothing to say. There are no words. I have said them all in the first rush of agony and now I sit silent and alone with my grief.

There is no one I trust to comfort me. No one to share the burden with. Though I shared him with many, he was mine and mine alone. None who loved him as I did. 

I remember often the first time I felt him move inside me. That moment when he became real and I became a mother. Just as often I remember the rush of pain when I first knew I lost him. Those two moments inextricably linked in my memories.

Today, mothers are being celebrated with love. I get cards and flowers and gifts and texts.  Facebook is full of photos of moms with their children. And I am silent with my tears. I have nothing left to say. Six more doesn't make up for one lost.

They reach for me, a hand rubbing my back, a hug, a head leaning against my shoulder. I am not alone, never alone. They watch me in my grief, always watching. Tears are their new normal. As is watchfulness.

Sorrow and loss wrap my life in silence.

I am here. I just have no words left.

Today Defines Me

My son died.

Perhaps if I say it often enough I will believe it.

My son died.

Three days after his twenty third birthday, he ate cake for breakfast and went to work. He came home. We exchanged a few words and he left to go shopping. He never made it back home.

My son died.

In that moment all that I am, the words that I've said, all that I believe about life and death, God and love, everything was put to the test.

This was my opportunity to decide if I really was the person I thought I was. Holding love in one hand, holding fear in the other, which would I chose?

Someone said that this moment, this tragedy, this accident, would not define me.

I rather hope it will.

I've learned so much about myself from wading through this tragedy.

I've learned to speak my truth, loudly, without apologies. I know that I will never again stay silent out of fear.

I've learned to ask for help and accept it graciously.

I've learned that I am surrounded by people who love me and if I reach for them, they will help me up or sit with me until I am once again ready to rise.

I've learned that I will never again play small to make someone else comfortable.

I've learned that that while in the midst of the worst pain imaginable I can chose love.

I've learned that I am strong. I am strong enough to break and put myself back together. I am strong enough to fall and get back up. I am strong enough to cry and then laugh again.

I've learned that I am a person who lives life with all that I am. I love deeply. I laugh freely. I sing out loud. I dance with abandon. I dive into every emotion and feel it with all that I am, even grief.

I've learned that the deeper the love, the deeper the pain.  I've learned that I would never undo the love to save myself the pain.

Because I've learned that the adventure is always worth it. 

Today I'm Fine

"How are you?" people ask me over and over.  Sometimes it's a stranger in the store. I ignore them because I have no words. Other times it's someone I know and I tell them that it's a bad question. 

It is a bad question. How do you think I am? My son is dead.

I'm fine.

Fucked up. Insecure. Neurotic. And emotional.

Just fine.

I cry. A lot.

I have bad dreams over and over. Waking, gasping, with tears and a heavy heart. I never dream of Zac. I dream of car accidents. I dream of bad things happening to my other kids, my family, my friends.

I'm fine. Really.

One day I went to the scene of the accident and I cleaned debris from the side of the road. A headlight. A fender. Tiny pieces of a shattered red car.  I cursed and cried and kicked the hubcap that was frozen in the ice.

I'm fine. Thanks for asking.

One day I came home to find the driveway marker that Zac put at the end of the driveway missing. I called my guy in a panic, sobbing. I don't want a new one. I want THAT one because that's the one Zac put there so he could find his way home.

I'm fine. It's all good.

One day Zac's big brother called me to see how I was doing. I laughed and I cried.

I'm fine.

I can't go to the store where he worked. I can't even drive by it without crying.

But I'm fine. Don't worry about me.

I keep counting the days and the weeks. I keep crying. Tears leaking out of my eyes while I drive, while I shop, while I cook dinner.

His boots sit in my kitchen. His sweater is folded in my drawer. His jackets hang in my closet.

I'm fine.

The stuffed elephant he bought me sits on a shelf in the living room. I carried it around for weeks after he died. It sits with his flashlights, his dice, his dragon.

People ask me over and over "How are you?"  How can I possibly answer that? Did you really want to know?

Well I'm fine. Just fucking fine. Thanks for asking. 

Today I Reach Out

Life is fragile and fleeting. One minute all is well. The next moment nothing will ever be the same again. The world changes in a heart beat. This moment, right here and now, is the only one guaranteed to us.

In this moment, I choose love. In choosing love, I reach out to those who matter to me. I surround myself with the people that I love, with those who love me.

I reach out and call someone, spending an hour on the phone. All is forgiven. I love you still.

I walk into someone's arms in the store. Holding tight to them. I have missed you. I love you.

I make a date for lunch, catching up for hours over soup and salad. I haven't forgotten you. I love you.

I listen to songs sung from an aching heart, meant to soothe my own aches. We don't grieve alone. I am here for you. I love you.

Texts, phone calls, visits. Tea dates and brownies.  You matter to me. I will love you always. You are one of my people.

You have held me up when I wasn't strong enough to stand alone. You have fed me chocolate. You have drank tea with me. You have laughed with me and cried with me. You have checked up on me. You have listened to my anger, to my sorrow, to my fears. You have given me a safe space to sit with my emotions. In surrounding me with love, you have helped me to choose love.

 

If this moment is all that is guaranteed to me, than in this moment I will reach out to all of those who have touched my life and my heart to say I see you. I hear you. You matter to me. 

Your love sustains me.  

From now through the end of time, never doubt my love for you.

Today, I Choose Love

In a moment everything changes.  Life ends and hearts break. Somehow we have to figure out how to go on.

Grief and fear walk with my every step. Sorrow so deep there are no words.  A piece of my heart has died and I want to curl up and die too. 

From sobbing and retching, I've moved on to sleeping and numbness.  And fear.  Overwhelming fear.  Fear of losing another loved one.  Worry over my children. Fear of driving in the snow. Fear of that truck heading towards me. Death lurks around every corner.  I'd like to stay safe in my bed with my head under the blankets.

Laughing with my children feels like a betrayal of the boy who will never laugh again. Singing to the music he will never again listen to feels wrong.  Living, in the face of his death, seems impossible.

The temperature outside plummets to match the frozen numbness that surrounds my heart. How can life go on inside or outside? Is it possible to survive this? Do I even want to try?

I say it over and over again, quoting Emmanuel. Hold fear in one hand. Hold love in the other. Holding both, choose love and choose love again. 

Facing a fear, a loss and a sorrow greater than anything I've ever known, I have to choose.  I'm holding tight to fear, worried that letting go of my sorrow means I didn't love enough. Yet the memory of love pulses in my heart with every beat.

I loved him. More than life itself. I would have died for him. If I could have eased his path or made him happy I would have done anything.  Yet it is only in death that he has found peace. How can I deny myself that which I wished for him?

I wanted him to find peace, love and joy. I wanted him to laugh. I wanted him to feel loved.  I have to believe that he's found that in the afterlife and that he would want those things for me too.

So today, I hold fear in one hand.  I hold love in the other. Holding both I choose love. 

Today I choose to laugh with my friends.  I choose to move my body, swimming, skating, dancing. I choose to turn the music up loud and sing along. I choose to eat chocolate and cheesecake. I choose to play with my puppy, sing to my littles and kiss my guy.

Today I choose to live and love and laugh out loud because the adventure is always worth it. And really as Natalie Babbitt said "Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live."

Today I Wait in Vain

I hear footsteps on the stairs and I look up, expecting to see him.

He's not there.

I start to back my car out of the driveway and I glance back, expecting to see a little red car.

He's not there.

I pull his clean socks out the laundry basket but he's not there to give them to.

I find his Toaster Strudels in the freezer but he's not there to eat them.

I scroll through Facebook and find a post that reminds me of him but he wasn't the one to share it.

He doesn't come home and tell me about his day.

He doesn't feed the cats every night. 

He's doesn't ask me for a hug.

He's not there to start an argument with his siblings.

He's not there to look at me like I'm an idiot.

He's not there to tell me all the things that I didn't know I didn't know.

There's an empty space, a gaping, yawning emptiness that nothing can fill. It's inside me and all around me.

It doesn't seem real to me. How can it be that he's not there.

I'm waiting for him to come home.

I'm waiting for him to wrap his arms around me once more.

I'm waiting to hear his voice.

I'm waiting for him to fill the emptiness.

I'm waiting, in vain.

Today I Do One Thing

Grief is a funny thing. It consumes your life. It takes your breath away.

It washes over me in waves. One minute I'll be fine, floating along with the flotsam and jetsam of my life. Then something happens and I'm drowning in waves of grief. It washes over me, pulls me under and leaves me gasping for breath, sobbing and retching.

This is my new normal.

Grief is heavy. Getting out of bed in the morning is hard. Choosing clothes is almost impossible. Chewing food is laborious. I sit with my hands wrapped around hot tea hoping that it will warm me from the outside in. It doesn't.

I've learned that I can do one thing. Just one. It might be a phone call from the insurance. It might be opening the mail. But that one thing takes all I've got. All my strength goes into that one thing and then there's nothing left.

There's nothing left for laundry. Or for menu planning or for polite small talk. There's nothing left for homework or house cleaning.

I wander through the store with no idea why I'm there. The only thought on my mind is to make sure that I stare at the pickles so I don't see the peanut butter frosting.

My phone thinks for me. Dinging when it's time to pick up the kids from school or reminding me that there's tumbling class. What day is it today? I don't know. But I know that it's been 29 days since the accident.

Some days I put one foot in front of the other with no idea where I'm going or what I'm doing. Moving forward, carrying this overwhelming heaviness on my heart.

Every Monday I live with the awareness. One week, then two, three weeks, now four. Somehow the sun rises and sets with distressing regularity and all I can do is try to breathe.

Some days, my one thing is breathing. 

Today I Hate

Today I hate the world and everyone in it. I have no patience. I have no sympathy. 

I do not choose love.

God save me from well-intentioned people. They tell me that they know how I feel because their brother/cousin/mother-in-law died. They tell me it's been a rough year for all of us. They suggest that it's easier for me because I have six more children to love. And then the fuckers have the nerve to tell me that since he was driving aggressively in that kind of weather the outcome wasn't surprising.

Is it surprising to anyone that I won't read my Facebook messages?

While the well-intentioned idiots of the world are sharing their pearls of wisdom I have held my sons death certificate in my hand. I have opened the Christmas gift he bought for me before he died. I have reread his last texts over and over.

While the self-righteous have carried on their lives untouched, I have prepared wills for my remaining children. I have talked to insurance adjusters. I have driven by the spot where he died over and over and over. I wonder if he was scared. I wonder if he called for me.

Right now every moment of every day is about me. This isn't your story. I don't want to hear your sympathies or your well-intentioned words that don't offer comfort.

Those people who tell me they have no words... YES! There are no words for this kind of pain.

I have no logic. I am like a wounded dog in a den sniping and snarling, ready to lash out at anyone who comes to close. You don't understand. You can't. Because you aren't me and my process is my own.

Today I hate the world and everyone in it. I don't want to play nice. I don't want to say the right things. And so I retreat. I have nothing to say. I nap. I stare vacantly at the tv. I ignore my phone.

I hurt and your words don't help.

Today I hate the world and I don't want to be in it.

How Can I Go On?

It's been a week since my world shattered. A week of mind numbing pain. I have sobbed. I have retched over and over, my body violently rejecting reality. I have survived the funeral.  I have survived Christmas. 

People have surrounded me with love. Knocks on the door. Hugs. Pasta. Christmas cookies. Chocolate. Brandy.

It has been a week.  Facebook has stopped pinging. Texts are few and far between. The phone has stopped ringing. The people have gone.

I have collapsed into sleep. Dozing on the couch. Curled up in my bed with my dog on my feet. Over and over I wake with tears seeping out from beneath closed lids.

The maelstrom of emotions has faded to numbness.

Confusion, sorrow, shock leaving behind a gaping emptiness and I wonder if I will ever feel joy again.  Will I laugh?  Will I sing and dance?  Will I walk the shore with the sun on my face, my toes in the water  and the wind in my hair?

How can I go on?

Is it wrong to laugh when my boy will never laugh again?

I'm afraid of the day when I can drive by the spot where his car crashed and his life ended without catching my breath on a sob.

Years ago a piece of my heart left me to go walk the world on its own. One week ago that piece of my heart died a sudden death.

How can I go on without it? Without him?

There are no words.

Somebody Died Today

It was just another day. I was doing my thing. Cooking dinner, helping with homework, washing dishes, scrolling through Facebook. 

Life ended. The world changed.  I didn't even notice when somebody died today.

I tucked my littles into bed. I kissed them. I sang them songs.  Then I went back to work on my laptop.

A strange car in the driveway. The dog barks. Heavy footsteps on the porch.  That's when I knew.

Somebody died today.

I opened the door before the knock. Shaking my head I whispered no, no, no. They nodded yes, yes, yes.

Somebody died today and he was mine.

Not my boy I cried over and over. No, not my boy.

Yes, yes your boy.

It can't be true. Say it isn't so.

But they wouldn't take it back. They just looked at me while my word shattered into a million pieces and life as I knew it ended. 

I sank down, holding myself. Screaming inside my head. No! Not my boy.  My guy came running to hold me. My littles got out of bed. How do you tell your children that their big brother is never coming home again?

One by one my children shattered.  Innocence lost,  hearts broken.  How do I hold them together when I don't have the strength to hold myself together? What can I possibly say to comfort them? There are no words.

Tears, guilt, regrets. They are too young for such burdens. One brother says he cried before I called because he felt something awful at the moment of death. Another brother silent and stone faced breaks down when we found out the airbag deployed. He blames himself for selling his brother a car with a defective airbag. A third boy wonders why he didn't spend more time at home, he didn't even say good-bye.

No one can eat. No one can sleep. Stories and laughter mixed up with sobs and vomit.

Life as we knew it, forever changed when somebody died today.

Nobody Died Today

Sometimes, something happens, and life stops. 

For a moment the world is frozen in time, breath catches on the inhale, pupils dilate wide, everything comes into sharp focus.

Then with a whoosh the breath releases on an exhale and everything moves again. Faster and more intense, hyper focus. Adrenaline pours through the body so you can do what must be done.

And finally the crash, the let down, the after shocks. Trembling,  crying,  maybe vomiting.  The fear that you didn't have time to feel floods your body leaving you shaken. It's over. You survived it. 

Nobody died today. 

It's only a few minutes between frozen and after shocks, 15 maybe or 30. But those few minutes are defining.  What did you do? How did you react? Did you choose love? 

Not just you,  but your people are defined as well. When the chips are down and everything is on the table, who did you reach for? Did your people show up for you? Did they surround you with love?

Did someone wrap you in their arms and tell you it was going to be okay?  Was someone there to rub your back and tell you to breathe? Did someone else drop everything and race across town to be with you?  Maybe someone told you it wasn't your fault or cracked a joke to bring a smile to your face.

When all is said and done, you survived it. Nobody died today and maybe, if you're lucky,  you chose love.

Maybe you didn't yell or curse. Maybe you hugged someone instead. Maybe your people chose love too, lifting you up, instead of beating you down. Maybe, if you're lucky, you realized what's really important and you let go of what wasn't. Quickly and easily, on an exhale, releasing all the things that just don't matter and holding tight to what does.

Because in the end, nobody died today. That's what really matters.