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.