Living with Loss

  Wyatt It's been over ten years since we said our final goodbye to the human form of our son. Following his death we created a nonprofit organization to help support the Wyatt Lambeth Legacy Welding Scholarship at Lively Technical College. Through this foundation, we granted $500  scholarships to 38 students in the Lively Welding Program and distributed multiple  grinders and Georgia boots.  The scholarships have been a healing salve and each donor, each recipient, and each person who applied for a scholarship was and is a valuable part of our grief journey. Selecting recipients was challenging and we always wished we could give more, could help more. Ultimately, the gift is knowing we do what we can and each person who received a scholarship, a grinder, or a new pair of boots, was one step closer to the future he or she set in motion.  In our hearts we are confident Wyatt would be pleased to help his fellow students in this way.  While we have dissolved t...

Yesterday I spent the better part of the day going through my son's things. I am the mother of an only child, thus I was want to save every little item he ever created. I recall from my years in a strong and wonderful support group there was this recurrence of the year seven. It seemed to me, people had the capacity to act at the seven year benchmark.  We are in year seven and I finally have the capacity to work my way through 20 years of memories. Coincidence, possibly. It doesn't matter why, it just is.  This time, seven years later, I was able to manage the memories and not quickly turn into a puddle of tears. I consider this a gift. I am grateful for capacity. I have come to this point by way of consistent support and love from family and friends, through counseling and medication, through exercise and meditation, through prayer and faith. The sources of my persistence are nearly endless.  When the fear takes hold, the pra...

"Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in" ~ Anthem by Leonard Cohen

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 ...