Living with Loss

My friend died. Its been a few months now, but in the process of grieving, that is not a long time. In my life, I haven't lost a lot of friends, so this path is a bit uneasy for me. Yet, with this loss, as with the others I've experienced, I can't help but first be grateful for the gift of a unique and wonderful life. I miss her laugh, her visits and telephone calls that always began with "hello sweetie." I miss singing at the top of our lungs to old time rock and roll, dressing up at Halloween and driving around at Christmas to look at the lights. This was my friend with whom I shared most of my life, from early childhood to well into my 50s.  My friend with whom I slugged through adolescence, and dared and dreamed a brief bit of our twenties. Ultimately our differences tore us apart and there was a long period of separation of our daily lives. We did not separate ourselves out of hatred or disdain, we simply recognized we had become very different people fr...

A little step away from my personal grief journey and a turn toward the current times.  As of today, over 100,000 humans around the world have died due to the worldwide pandemic of Coronavirus or COVID-19. People are isolated. Borders around the globe have closed. Schools are closed. Airlines are grounded. Massive amounts of food sits rotting unable to be distributed. People are hoarding and supply chains are stressed. Businesses have closed. Governments scramble. Hospitals are maxed.  Care centers are incubators of death.  Medical personnel are at higher risk than ever yet we demand more and more from them.  The bodies of the dead are left to rot on the streets, held in morgues, or turned into mass graves. Funerals and memorials are in abeyance. There is neither time nor place for grieving. Isolation is wicked. Tensions can be high and panic pervasive.    Blame begins. Anger festers to hatred.  The fragile nature of our ex...

Death is Just a Thing The summer sun shines on me with a brilliance that warms my bones, but my heart is lonely for the ones who have gone. My ears long to hear their words. My eyes to linger upon their beauty. But only memories remain, some blurring with the sand and the wind. Time marches on… Death is just a thing that happens in the wind. Hold the memories of love’s last words, A silent moment or a ruckus laugh. A giant hug or kiss on the cheek. Whatever it was, that moment shared, tuck it deep within your heart. For time will pass and take its toll, but love will last beyond death’s sting and shine within the memories we sing. 4.21.17 mw lambeth

Watching the one you love die due to traumatic injury is trauma itself. The death of a loved one is so difficult to integrate into our lives. When that loved one is a child it can be more challenging because a child’s death comes with a uniqueness that makes incorporating the death into our lives very difficult. Our own beliefs and personalities can drive how we manage the grieving process. As a child I observed many people deal with the death of a loved one. I guess I adopted some of those things as my own. My parents never shielded me from the reality of death and for that I am ever grateful. But, there is still a personal learning curve and there are moments of witnessing death that sit upon my heart which I’ve never forgotten. I recall the young man in high school who died from leukemia, his open casket, the ball cap on his head. I recall crying from deep within my soul. Though I did not know him well at all, for years I went to visit his grave. I don’t know why, I just...

  I looked new grief in the face today. I hurt. I saw the pain, the hopelessness, the deep sorrow of grieving a child. His eyes were tired, and then he laid his head down on the mailbox that stood between us, my neighbor and me. The fatigue of grieving covered his face and his body was bent with the heaviness of it all. This is his second loss, the twin to the son he lost thirty years ago. This one comes with trapping and thoughts unlike the first. It’s hit him hard. There are no more children, his wife is dead. He’s alone. He’s lonely. He’s sad. I ache for him. I want to make it all better for him, but I know I can’t, this is his journey. He says I’m strong. He sees me breathing, walking, he believes me to be strong. I share that my times of wailing and crying are done in private, and it hurts so badly to open your heart and allow the sorrow to be, to know the absence, to acknowledge the death, to understand all that was lost and to have it seared into the soul and vanq...

I've been harboring these woeful thoughts for quite a while now, pushing them to the deep and dark places of my being. I know it's not healthy, but what is a person to do? Living goes on and like it or not, I'm a part of the living. I know all the psychological precepts of how suppressing our emotions can bring disastrous consequences and for a while I somehow made myself believe that I was coping with this tragedy of ours. I know now it was false coping and how seriously dangerous that can be. Apparently, the emotions were just simmering in my gut, bubbling every now and again bringing out a little tear or short cry. I thought maybe the grieving that was so absolutely exhausting and encompassed my being with tormenting agony was over.  I could in fact go through the days and manage my self enough not to cry at the innocuous objects that frequently spark my memories to light, sting my soul, and remind me he's dead. I am pretty good at showing that facade,...

I’ve never truly loved someone and not given some sacrifice to that person.   It is the nature of love to sacrifice something for the other person; be it large or small, significant or inconsequential, love always, begets sacrifice. For the love of my parents, I lived in a city I hated…and have remained here. Though my disdain for this city has waned over the years, I am still here.   There is a part of me that regrets the choice to stay here, because I thought they needed me .   Yes, I’ve learned that indeed, it was I who needed them, but harboring that belief prohibited me from embracing the beauty what was. My siblings all moved away, raised their families in the place of their choosing, but I stayed. I went to school at a university not of my choosing.   I lived in places I’d rather not have.   I often resented not being able to expand my life by seeing other places, meeting other people or traveling to exotic lands.   But ultimately, my love for ...

I've been living without my son for 27 months and 27 days. Do I count days? No, there really is no need to count days, I know he's not here, I taste it with each breath, I live it with each thought, I know it with every moment of each day. People often offer platitudes such as, "may time bring you healing." They naively think it true and thus present it as an offering of hope in times of despair. I begrudge no one who offers sympathy sincerely. Somehow it's a solace to the one offering that time may actually provide the recipient with the miracle of healing. But time does not heal. Time only brings a change to grief. Time does not alleviate the sorrow or diminish the anguish that comes with the death of a child. Time morphs grief into something different, maybe something more familiar we somehow learn to accept as a constant presence.  Understand however that familiar does not equate to comfortable. That grief is like a nasty tasting food th...

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!...

Have I mentioned how painful this is, how horrible grieving is? I've had the most challenging day, just to be  has been awful.  I want not to be, not to feel, not to think, not to remember, not to anything, just not ...nothingness would be so welcomed in place of this pain.  I miss my son so much that really I'd rather just not be .  You may think that is such a wretched thought, but I'm not talking suicide.  I heard a lady in a support group say she just wished she wasn't here. "Don't get me wrong," she said, "I'm not suicidal, I just don't want to be here without my son."  Ditto. This life is so empty.  For me, all I ever wanted was to be "mom."  I wanted to be the caretaker, the healer, the cook, the maid, the chef, the teacher, the mentor, the guide, the chauffeur, the person who cared the most...and I tried.  Now that life is gone. This life is empty; pain remains. I'd rather not.

After Wyatt's accident, most of the things he had on were destroyed. Not his boots, those Georgia Boots are indestructible!  Same style he always wore, lace up, thick sole, heavy leather, steel toe...had to protect the feet. I look at those boots everyday and I think of my son.  Those boots were last thing on my son's feet, and they still exist. Last weekend two of the boys were in our garage tinkering on a motorcycle.  I couldn't stand to see it, I had to go inside and cry.  I was so, so happy they were here, but happiness is also painful.  It congers up all the memories of why you feel that way.  How many days did I come home from work and there were boys, trucks, motorcycles, boats or some vehicle or apparatus in my driveway...suffice it to say, If I came home something was there.  But that was good; that was life, our life...and I loved it. Seeing those boys in the garage brought all that to the surface.  ...

Twice I heard this today, "it's like salt in the wound."  First when listening to NPR, a man telling a story of dealing with the horrors of war even thirty years after; how death changed him, how he knew the minute he killed the enemy his life was changed.  For years he would not discuss it, but now time had come.  He expressed how there is no peace for the injured soul, morning is salt in the wound, evening is salt in the wound, it's an eternal cycle of pain. Next, a friend used the term when speaking about the death of her beloved daughter, how everything hurts so badly after such a loss, how sometimes people say things that are so painful to hear, it's like salt in the wound.  This grieving is so unpredictable, so volatile, so wicked at its core.  Insidious by nature, you think you have escaped it but there it is slapping you in the face and bringing you to your knees. It doesn't take much; what most think as so common becomes a mine field ...