Living with Loss

"Your are all together beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you."                                                           ~ Song of Solomon 4:9

Thousands of stars shine in the sky and I know you are here. Thousands of stars bring light to this world and I know you are here. Thousands of stars twinkle and blink shouting, look up here, look up here...                                   I am here, I am here....see me, I am here!    ....and I know you are here.                                                               

Two years ago today, your life as we knew it ended. Two years ago today, I fell to my knees in light of the horror that my precious child was burned in a horrific explosion. I begged for mercy, pleaded for your life, and crumbled in the fear of your death. I still see you there on that gurney, under those lights, waiting for the airplane to take to you to Shands. The weather so bad, we had to wait for it to pass and take you by fixed wing plane. Your dad and I arrived at Shands before you, waiting for hours in the emergency room for you to arrive.   Finally, there, again another little room where they tell you all the things you fear the most.   When I saw you again, I wretched and vomited for your body was so desecrated; my beautiful, wonderful, precious child lay there burned, dying and there was nothing I could do to help you, to ease your pain, to comfort you.   For twenty one days, you fought that battle my precious son, like the brave warrior that we raised, li...

We're getting ready to take a wonderful trip and I've been so excited about it.  It's our escape from the holiday of Thanksgiving.  I just can't bring myself to do Thanksgiving the same way as we did before. It was our favorite holiday...visiting with family, filling our bellies with culinary delights, sitting by the fire, chatting about life.  It was the best of times and we loved it. So, now we run away from that beautiful memory of our past existence, hoping that life will stop being so painful. I bought a beautiful new dress and have been so excited about wearing it to one of the fabulous Vegas shows. I began packing and getting things together, then suddenly, it hit me. The tears began to rage. My chest began to tighten and finally the dam opened. Always like a fist to the chest, it knocks me down and I can do nothing but cry and hurt, and know there is no balm for this sorrow. I felt so ashamed, so selfish, for in that moment, I realized t...

So I took a walk this evening and it didn't take long before I began to notice the things around me.  I could feel the warm air on my skin and yet the heat of the day had subsided. As I walked past our neighbor's house, I was drawn to a pine cone sitting on the edge of their yard.  I picked it up and began to examine it... intricate layers, precise and predictable, becoming less organized and polished as it became larger and the tip bent and scraped by the ravages of time and nature. Then the pecan that lay in the gutter crushed by the passing cars, the dry fallen leaves on the sidewalk twisted and crumpled. The delicate balance of our own existence mirrored in the substance of nature. We believe nature to be so powerful, so resilient, just like we think our lives and our bodies are....but truly nature is fragile, mercurial and unpredictable, just like our lives. We expect to experience pattern and course to nature...winter, sp...

I've been very aware of Wyatt's death lately.  It's more than his absence.  It's his death from this life that pours over me.  In the past 9 months or so, I'd gotten to the point where I was sleeping...but now I have ever increasing bad memories and thoughts that come to my mind and steal my rest.  I remember being a child and being so scared of the dark that I would always have a night light.  Sometimes, I would sit up in bed to the wee hours of the morning staring about the room, terrified that some paranormal being would enter.  To the contrary, I'm not afraid some evil being will enter my home; but the perilous thoughts are the same. The feeling that overwhelms me is total fear.  I become whelmed with an irrational, uncontrollable fear that makes me so very vulnerable, so alone, so afraid. Thoughts of death and dying, thoughts of Wyatt's accident and death, the hospital, the doctors, the prayers, the surgeries, the nur...

I just looked at some photos of Wyatt that are hanging on our living room wall and gave an exasperated sigh.  It was not a grieving sigh, it was pure irritation with it all...fatigue, sorrow, resentment, anger, frustration and disgust all rolled into one big sigh.  Why him?  Why me? This death makes me question all the choices I made in life.  Why did I marry the person I did, would it have been different if I didn't marry or married someone else?  Why did I choose the career I did?  Why didn't I stay at home with my child like my heart told me I should?  Why did I waste so many years doing things for others and not for my child? Why do I continue to be this person I'm so angry with? Who would I be now if I'd followed my heart instead of being responsible?  Would my life be more filled with sorrow or less? I can't help but continue to ask myself the question, why my son, why our family, why me.  There are many others out...

DOES THIS EVER END?  I wonder some days if this will ever end, will I ever be able to step out of this cyclone of grief and be human.  Sorrow sits like a tumor in my throat.  I want to scream, hit, break things and curse at humanity. The senselessness of it all is baffling. Anger, like a cancer takes over everything else, it suffocates life and strangles any chance of healing.  If only I could control the anger.  If only they had paid for their negligence.  If only the country had laws that protected workers instead of companies.  If only corporations were truly made to be accountable for their employees' safety.  If only irresponsible workers and lazy administrators were fired.  If only grown men and women would act like adults. If only, If only, If only.... But they were not adults, they were not responsible, they were lazy; my son died at their hands, because of their negligence. For that my blood boils, for that I am angry, fo...

I realized that I'm not the person I was before January 1, 2010.  To complicate it all, I'm not so sure I want to be that person. That person had family, had a child, knew love, enjoyed life and this person that I am now has no family, no child, has no confidence in love and no ability to enjoy life as it is.  You see that person is too much for me to internalize, too painful to recall...I have to move forward without her...if only I knew how.

Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I can not attain to it. Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there your hand will lead me and our right hand hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night." Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike. Search me out, O God, and know my heart...

It was a rough night.  One of those nights when I felt the sting of Wyatt's death, the manifestation of his absence and the profound changes it brought to my existence. I cried for hours and tried to stifle the tears and shield myself from the sheer agony that arose from within my soul. I longed for a comforter but couldn't ask for one. I hurt more than the body could handle, and when that happens there is no choice but to shut down. There are moments in this journey when closing my mind to life if all I can do to survive. All I know is the pain of Wyatt's death and his absence from this world is no less pronounced now than before and sometimes it seems greater.

I've been thinking about how the death of your child or grandchild can affect your life. I think this loss changes us irrevocably. There is a pain so deep, so foreign to heart and mind, so intense that when experienced we are no longer the person we were just moments before. I am no longer Mom .  My mother is no longer Memaw.  My mother-in-law is no longer Grandmother .  People may say that no one can take that from you; but someone did. My son will never call out to me again and yell..." Hey, Mom ..." I will never bake him a cake or purchase him a little gift I think he'd enjoy, he will never again wrap his arms around me and lift me into the air just because he could and to hear me laugh, he will never again say thank you or I love you. My mother will never hear him say, " Hi Memaw , for of nine grandchildren, that was his name for her, only Wyatt called her Memaw . My mother-in-law had one grandchild, just one, our Wyatt. She will never again hear him on the ...

When Wyatt was just about six weeks old we went to visit family.  On the way we stopped at my great uncle's house so he could see his great-great nephew.  My uncle, picked him up and held him in his arms, looked down at him and said, "He's a fine boy, a fine boy." There have been many days lately that I sorely miss having my big strappin' boy around the house. It is so evident to me now how helpful Wyatt was to those he loved and cared about. He did so much for me, for his dad, for Elizabeth, for his friends, for his memaw. His absence so pronounced when I have to figure out how to move something or use some new electronic device or my mom needs a chore done...things he always did and never fussed about.  I think sometimes that maybe I asked him to do too much, but then I realize I didn't; I was simply trying in the only way I knew how to raise a fine boy in a way that he would grow to become a good man. Wyatt was becoming that good man I knew he would be; h...

I've been a bit melancholy lately, so many thoughts run through my head....I don't even put them into words, I don't know if I could put them into words of any comprehensible manner. They are so fast and vicious, they overcome me and I begin to act as if the people around me know what I'm thinking, as if I've expressed my inner thoughts to them...of course I've not uttered a word. I feel like jello...nice solid outside but the minute its stuck with anything you realize it's just mush. It's as if time has allowed me to realize and understand things that it wouldn't allow me to do before now. So many things that while in the midst of being at Shands I could not comprehend have been illuminated to me now. It hurts to know the things that I was sheltered from before...it hurts to know those things that a parent would never want to know. For example, I've realized now that the "skin" on Wyat's arms was not him, it was not him at all, it ...

We often ask why. Why did my child die; what did I do to cause this to happen?  I learned this rather early on in my grief journey, I asked myself why a hundred million times. What did I do in this life to deserve such a thing?  What did I do that was so bad as to endure the pain of loosing a child?  What did I do? Why me, why Wyatt, why us, why our family, why? It took a while, but I learned that I didn't do anything. It's not my fault, as much as I want to take the blame, it's not mine to own. Some of us want an answer to why and some of us will search for years for the why;  others, like myself, accept there is no why and I will never, in this life, know why.  I can simply accept the fact that it happened and there is no answer to why. Is that always easy....no, but I suppose it gets easier with time.  Time is not the ultimate healer, it does not heal this pain, there is no healing from this pain.  A friend said that time only gives us...

Why is it the pattern is so predictable? Everything is going along and it hits me...he's not here.  He's gone. How can that be?  How can my son not be here? I had one of those days where I felt like the world was crashing in on me....like I couldn't stop the madness of life from taking control of my mind, of my heart, of my world. Damn, I hate this. If you think about it, if you think about the reality of his death and what it means, it will drive you to madness....so I push it back, I keep it away, in a dark place that is hidden and difficult to find.  Oh, sure it's on purpose, if this reality hit the surface of my mind I could not cope.  We all have coping mechanisms, mine are the dark and hidden crevices of the mind. Today, I could feel it coming on. First the fear, then the overwhelming anxiety, like I couldn't stop the madness of reality. I soon realized that my perspective on life had changed - drastically changed. What used to bring me sat...

It's been a long week.  The car crash on Saturday put me back a bit.  Going to the same ER my son was in challenged me emotionally, certainly more than the physical pain of the impact. I laid on the stretcher and cried from pain, cried from fear, cried from the wretched memories that washed over my mind.  In my hand I held a small container of Wyatt's ashes that I always keep with me.  It somehow brought me some peace, some comfort,as if he was with me in this place of our most wretched memories, of greatest heartache. Holding his ashes was my only solace...how strange, how sad. When I was at work later that week, a friend called me and said she had something for me.  She came to my office, we sat together and she shared with me that this strong voice had been telling her that she needed to give something to me.  She of course prefaced this with "don't think I'm crazy but..." Then she opened her hand and there lay a little wh...

The rain to the wind said, "You push and I'll pelt." They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged--though not dead. I know how the flowers felt.  ~ Robert Frost

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. ~ Mother Teresa I understand it, it's just that I still love and I still hurt and I really, really miss my beautiful boy.

My father died on May 11th ten years ago this year. My son and husband gave me a pair of beautiful purple violets that year and they have donned my office windows over the years with a flurry of deep purple flowers and lush green leathery leaves. One of them died when we were at Shands with Wyatt; the other blooms as never before. This year, My mother gave me a violet for Mother's Day. Now I have two again, one small, new and fresh; one aged, thick and layered with time. I liken this juxtaposition to my grief. Not that loosing a parent is akin to loosing a child, it's not. But pain is pain and grief is grief and the emotions we experience and express are similar. It's just the vivid picture of old and new, past and present, the hope of future and the frailness of present life that makes me think. Will time soften the edges of this loss as it did with my father?  Will I one day not think of my son and his death with every breath.  Will I ...

Yesterday, I took the day off from work.  I needed time to do some things I don't ever get to do, a little time to relax and just be, work in the yard, bake a cake, read a book, run an errand.  Nothing important, other than for my well being. Over the course of this journey so far, I've often heard people ask another if she or he ever felt guilty for enjoying something, for laughing, for having fun and smiling. I never have really, I just thought I was successfully progressing through my grief and growing into the person I am to become.    Oh stupid me. Yesterday, my husband and I were riding in the truck, laughing and enjoying, truly enjoying each other's company.  I don't think I've felt anything like it since 2009.  I was happy to be spending the day with my husband, laughing with him, just being together. It was after the lighthearted laughter that I felt the cut of shame.  How could I?  How could I laugh and be happy in this world? ...

I subscribe to a grief support email.  The email this morning was about several steps we should take to help continue progressing through our grief journey.  One of the steps was that we must "make a conscious decision each day to move forward."  Some things are easier said than done. This grieving process is a daily walk with life, it's not always a beautiful walk lined with birds and flowers and babbling brooks...sometimes we enter the darkness of the heavy woods where light does not penetrate and sound muffles our thoughts into a simmering mush of misery. Thankfully, the light does ultimately peek through the trees and there shines a glimmer of hope that we may again enter life.  It's that glimmer that keeps us moving, it's that hope that allows us to get up every day and face living without our child. As in nature, our life is not all sunshine; there are cloudy days and weeks, even seasons, but with every season of sorrow, there is a...

As Spring shows its glory, the absence feels deeper.  All the good things in life come in spring...the beautiful new flowers, the freshness of cool rain and the warmth of sunshine following the cold of winter together create a newness to life that comes with no other season. This spring seems more beautiful than many I've seen in a long time, yet at the same time it evokes little joy for me. As a young mother, my father would guide me and Wyatt around his yard and show us each new flower bud, every little bloom. It brought him such delight. "Look at this" he would say as he held up the little bud on a grape vine.  "Now, come over here" and we would dutiflly follow as he would show the beginnings of an orange.  Around to the back we would walk and gaze at the blooms on the pear tree and talk about how many pears it would produce that year and how we would pick them and stew them with cinnamon and sugar.  Spring was my father's favorite ...

I've been to several counselors to help me through this grieving process.  While I think a couple have been pretty good and probably helped me get through some of the darkest times, there was one who simply raised the hair on my back.  After our first, and only visit,  I left her office feeling like not one person in the world understood this sorrow.  She who seemed so grounded, so peaceful, so willing to help one struggling in pain. We concluded our meeting after relaying to her the horrific story of my beautiful son's accident, hospitalization and then his death.  I shared my pain, opened my heart and prayed that she would be able to guide me to clarity, to hope, to living again.  As we concluded, with sweetness dripping from her words, she said, "we'll put the pieces back together."  At that moment, I realized she didn't have a clue; not one iota of a clue....clue-less she was, absolutely clueless .  PUT THE PIECES BACK TOGETHER!...

I use to walk with purpose in this life. I knew my calling, I knew my responsibilities. I understood the value of why I had to follow the pattern of society. Why I had to tap my feet to the monotonous sway of life, it was good.  I liked it;  I had purpose. I've no purpose any more.  I sway in the wind without a destination, no grounding to keep me and no hope to hold me. Why is it I'm here?

Well, it's hit me; At least it seems that way. I could do it today, I could leave this place and never return and never miss it. All I want is my son.  All I want is to see him, to hear him, to put my arms around him and hold him tight, to tell him that I love him, that I'm proud of him.  Do you know what it's like to want something so badly and at the same time know that you will never, ever have it?  Nothing you do, no matter how hard you strive, no matter the prayers, the begging and pleading, the good deeds or simply asking, it will never ever be.  We go insane from things of this nature…I’ve seen it happen, I feel it in my soul. Enter the Cuckoo's Nest, my lair of nefarious thoughts and ill repose, replete with danger, fraught with fear and horrific dreams; no longer free to live this life, I fight to be. I don’t want to be, not here, not now.   I’ve no future, I’ve no hope, I’ve no dreams, I’ve nothing, nothing at all…

February 14th is a day most people associate with love, Valentines Day.  Filled with flowers, candy, teddy bears, little red hearts and chocolate. This year, it's a little different for me.  I reflect back upon this day in history. In 1946, my grandfather died on February 14th.  My father was with him and as a 17 year old boy, had to call his mother and sisters to tell them about the unexpected and fatal heart attack. This year, our second together as a couple without our only child began as a non-descript, uneventful day.  No gifts, no candy or little sweet teddy bears; just the two of us. Around 9:30 the evening of this February 14th, I received a text.  My first cousin's daughter had a baby boy.  The following morning I received a call.  My elderly cousin had died around 9:30 the previous night. While I grieve the death of my elderly cousin, I rejoice at the birth of the new child. His name is Wyatt, after my son....

For months I tried to busy myself with different things...watercolor, pottery, writing, poetry, gardening, stained glass, counseling sessions, support groups, blogging. Suffice it to say, I spent a good chunk of change to keep myself in the world of the living.  I'll consider it an investment in life, my life.  Not that I wanted to make that investment, but it kept me alive over the last year. Now, it seems I'm suspended in the loop of time.  There is no driving force to compel me to go do anything...instead, I'd rather rest. I want to stop, look around and take it all in. Unfortunately for me, that rest is complicated by the memories it allows to surface. It's one of the reasons why I did so much...some of my memories are haunting, dangerous, treacherous waters. Memories are the door to a host of complicated emotions, they give knowledge about why I am where I am.  Memories are one of those things to which I've developed a love-hate relationship. However...

I wasn't much into celebrating my birthday, what was the purpose, I'm just another year older, or as one person put it, another year closer to being reunited with my child. Jim's birthday was however a big one, you know ending in "5" or "0" and it deserved celebration. Not only because it was a big birthday, but because he is a wonderful and kindhearted man and we decided Wyatt would want a celebration. We had a wonderful party, friends from all segments of our lives shared in the joy of the day.  We ate, drank, chatted, took photographs, hugged, cried and laughed. The day was filled with life, love and friendship and we relished every moment. Then the door closed. The people were gone.  We sat together and quickly realized without words how very alone we were; how Wyatt's absence from this day, this celebration, cut into our very souls. He should be here. We yearn for him. We cherish the person he was and the man he was becoming. We want him in our ...

Today I went to a funeral service for a cousin. It was the first service I've been to since my son's service. My son died on January 1, 2010.  My cousin died on January 1, 2011.  My son was 20. My cousin was just shy of 93. She had one child, a son.  Her son died when he was in his twenties. As I sat at the graveside in the cold and rain I was flooded with emotions that I could not contain so I got up and walked away from her grave.  I walked back toward another part of the cemetery unknown to me, somewhere away from the people.  I just needed to breathe, to cry, to hurt, to allow the agony of death to rip through me yet again. When I stopped walking and regained my composure I looked up and read the name on the headstone in front of me adorned with a photo of a young, handsome boy. There before me was the name and face of our friend's son.  Their only child.  I stood there and felt the pain of his parents....