Living with Loss

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 ...

When we share time with our children, explore life through their eyes and enjoy simple moments, we are blessed with some pretty awesome gifts, both for them and for us.    On this fourth anniversary of Wyatt’s death, we choose to remember his life and all the joy he brought to our world. This world is a better place because he was here.   We are better people because he was our son. We choose to remember his life; forever our beautiful boy, our Little Warrior. The Little Warrior When choosing his name, we always knew our son must have a strong name, for he would be strong, not just in muscle but in will and temperament. His name could not be common nor could it be odd, this name had to describe him, give him the character distinctive to the person we knew he would become. We never really came to a decision and as my belly grew to an enormous size the question of his name was still unanswered.   My projected due date came and went.   Jim’s gra...

  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...

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...

Wyatt would have been 23 this year. While his birthday has now passed, I can't help but feel multiple emotions about his death. I am trying, really trying, to not allow his death define my life; yet, as I breathe in those thoughts of gratefulness and thankfulness of being his mom, I breathe out the anger and resentment that I had to see my beautiful boy lay dead in a hospital bed and say goodbye to my only child. It's unacceptable to me, maybe even unfathomable. Those first weeks and months after Wyatt's death, I told myself I would believe that he had gone on a long trip...Montana or Alaska or someplace he wanted to visit.  That following his visit he decided to live there and I would not see him for a very very long time. That he was in remote wilderness where he could not contact me nor I him.  He was just away. I know now that is probably not too uncommon for parents whose child dies, but I've also learned it is a useful coping mechanism that shepherds us through ...

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 ...

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...

T ime turns differently for the mother of a dead child.  Time is slower, much slower, more methodical in it's forward motion. I can sit for an hour and have hundreds of amazing thoughts rush across my mind, and then, just as quickly forget all the fantastic beauty of each of them. Recalling maybe one very simple and mundane task, something like I should boil an egg for breakfast.  Everything takes more out of you when you're the mother of a dead child. This world alive with children, children's activities, children's toys, and children's accomplishments is a playground rife with danger for the mother of a dead child. Breathing in the life of the rest of the world's child-filled lives somehow makes each breath a little heavier and laced with the acerbic taste of emptiness. There is not one thing in life I can do and not be confronted with children and shown the magnificent abundance of having a child in your life and yet simultaneou...

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.

I feel like a big elephant is sitting on my chest.  I want to cry, and scream and explode in anger at this life, this world.  What makes this pain subside, What?  It will never go away as long as I breathe, but if it would just subside.  I can't get this agony to let up; I try, I work hard at it, but it rears its ugly head every time I think I'm making some progress. Right now, I don't want to function, I don't want to be human, I don't want to be productive, I don't want to do anything; I want my son, I want him here, with me, in this time and place.  I want MY son.

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 ...