Living with Loss

  Some of us gathered to remember our children, it was a sad and beautiful thing. As we stood in the chill of a Florida evening and shared memories of our children, they were with us in a way. Each parent shared an item that evoked memories, stuffed toys, food, photos, or some memento and then explained why they brought that particular thing. How wonderful children are, and not just the child himself or herself, but all the joy and wonderment they bring to our lives and to our world. We are a world filled with millions of unique souls. I feel so privileged and honored to know these children in such a special way, that these parents, once unknown to me, have embraced my pain and hold me in their supportive arms. They stand beside me today, and will be with me tomorrow or a decade from now, for they walk in my shoes. I deeply care for each of them, I want to help carry their burden and share this sorrow with them. There is healing that comes from shar...

When Wyatt was a little boy and didn't feel well, he often struggled to explain what or where or how he hurt. What does it feel like, I would ask. "It's blue pain," he replied. As a mom, this frustrated me so because I knew something was ailing him, but " blue " pain didn't help me in determining what was wrong and how I could soothe him. I lamented over this many a time as he used this term for quite a while.  I finally determined it just meant he didn't feel well. As an adult we may have an off day where we just feel like hunkering down in the safety of a blanket, and escaping in the words of a good book. There are times we just need to be, not think, care, or worry... just be. Blue pain is not obvious. Blue pain is encompassing and nefarious. Grief has become my blue pain. Grief doesn't present itself so prominently any more, like a stomachache or headache;. This grief used to strut around like a rooster. I knew its ...

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 just washed the sheets and as I made up the bed the side of top sheet fell across the bedrail. The thought of death rushed crossed my mind, the white sheet across the bed, the body on the bed, the hospital, the goodbyes, the pity of it all.  So often the slightest of thing will bring a totally unconnected thought, yet be so tightly entwined in my grief. This life full of simple daily actions is filled with little sparks that fuel the fire of horrors that fill my mind. I just wonder when that will stop. That ritual drive to work fills my stomach with bile and angst every time. The sight of a young man with curly brown hair sends my heart to rushing. The smell of the hardware store never fails to cause my knees to buckle, the acrid smell hits my nostril and my stomach turns, the tears well in my eyes and I want to run away, far away. It's like it was all yesterday. How can one escape the face of death when everything around is covered in its shroud. The river flow...

There was a single cloud sitting in the sky, it seemed as if it were again he and me. For a moment, I felt so close, but ever fleeting the cloud disappeared as did the feeling of he and me. Quickly it drifted and vanished. No more he and me. Just like that, gone quickly,   silently,   mysteriously,     forever, gone.      

In 2008, I went to Australia to visit a friend and her family.  I was there for three weeks, from around Thanksgiving until almost Christmas. It was a joyful time to be with her and her family, with her two young children excited by all the events of the holiday.  She selflessly took me on daily adventures, sharing her fair city, a drive into the mountains, a walk over the Sydney Harbor Bridge and romping around Sydney for hours, and near the end of my visit a Sunday morning walk on Bondi Beach followed by breakfast at a outside cafe.  One afternoon, close to my departure, we all sat on a blanket in the park, basking in the December warmth and sun of the southern hemisphere and listened to Christmas music while the children danced and sang and we ate cheese and crackers and sipped wine. On one rainy day, we rested from our daily jaunts and I flipped through the pages of her recipe books. The entire trip is a beautiful...

I received a visit from a friend the other week. He's a good man with a gentle soul, a rare character in this world. We have often chatted about our common dream of hiking the Appalachian Trail; he will likely one day accomplish the feat of which I will only dream.  He's a naturalist of sorts, likes the woods, from what I can tell, finds his place in this world through nature...like my Wyatt. It's odd how some people just have a way of making your day better because they are down to earth, honest, and good and right, cares about others, and affirms our belief that all is right with the world. A while ago he and some buddies hiked a portion of the Muir Trail in California. He shared with me that he had built a carin, stack of rocks, in Wyatt's memory. I covered my face and cried at the sound of his words. I cried because there are people out there to carry on the memory of my son. I cried because it struck me as such a beautiful gift for h...

I was going through some things today, cleaning and organizing. At first, it was fine; after a while, it broke me. Being a bereaved parent it's difficult to do most any task that involves pieces of the past and not have it conjure an emotional response. Frankly, my emotions can spark with the most mundane and benign thing; it does not have to relate to Wyatt to strike the proverbial chord, but today it was. Nothing dramatic, not photos, videos or audios, I was going through some Christmas cards we received from the year after Wyatt's death. I got through about one third of them when it hit me and thrust me to the floor in heaves of nausea and screaming through the tears. I began to wail and sob and ache at the absence of my child. It can't be, it simply can't be. But, it is. After a while, the wave of sorrow and sickness subsided so I could continue with my task, I laid down amid the various papers and books and began to look through them. I found...

This is such an odd time. My thoughts of Wyatt are moderated as I try to shield myself from the memories of the horrible time. I have to recall the good, only the good, not that time, that day, that walk to the hospital, the drive to Gainesville, the lying on the waiting room floor, the 23 days of clinging to life and waivering on death, and then death. Singing to my son's body in the silence of that room, down the hall, last one on the left. It's near impossible to push it all out and time has not softened the vividness of those moments.  I want to remember the living and not the dying. It's so hard to do and some days seems impossible. Life has a way of jetting me back to the horror, even while I try to think only of the good.  Things, words, people, photos, they all bring memories that take me to him not being here and then to his dying, his accident, all he endured and all the details I don't want to recall. No ...

Cherish 1. to hold or treat as dear; feel love   for: to cherish one's native land. 2. to care for tenderly; nurture: to cherish a child. 3. to cling fondly or inveterately to: to cherish a memory. I often walk around the house and sing.  I don't do this when people are in the house, it's a private indulgence.  I'm a rather reserved person at heart and don't feel comfortable expressing myself quite so dramatically in front of others and certainly not through singing and dancing.  But there is a freedom to singing at the top of your lungs, crying at the words or dancing with exhilaration. Sometimes Wyatt would walk inside and catch me in my personal escape belting out some familiar chorus as I vacuumed or maybe dancing like a uninhibited child.  He would stop, stare, shake his head and then crack a little grin and give a little roll of his eyes and say "you're such a crazy person." Then...

The death of an only child leaves an indelible mark on the soul. There is a vacant place in living that is never filled, never eased. I know that now; if I live to be 110, it will be true then. When your only child dies it's one thing, when your only child dies before he had children of his own, it's another thing.  I'm not saying any loss of a child is greater than another; on the contrary, they all come with unique challenges. It's just that that when life prances around shouting "look at me, look at me" with the young boy walking around the lake holding his mom's hand, grandma tucking her granddaughter in at night, graduation ceremonies and proms, tournaments, plays and recitals, weddings, new jobs, and babies, they all make it so painfully clear how my time with all of that is over. Stolen. With most things in this life we have a choice, but not this. This is not my choice. This is so different from something we choose, it's not what job to take or...

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...