Living with Loss

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...

As I was driving home last week my mind told me I finally had energy to put into living. I had this moment of complete joy. Then, almost instantly, guilt pushed into my mind. Grief is a wicked beast.  I drove down the road contemplating the battling emotions. I decided love must win; but, love only wins when we work at it.   Love must be coached out of and in to us.  We must be thoughtful about love.   Love is a powerful thing ... and yet it's fragile, not to be toyed with or taken lightly.   Love is a treasure that becomes more valued with time; each little nick and tear, each loss and each new beginning makes us need and want love even more. We are desperate for love.  Love is the antidote to sorrows, but it can be a fickle thing, and we are leery of its power, uncomfortable with the prerequisites for accepting it's healing.  Love is healing, but we fear it, shy from it and close our minds to its power. Being open to love means we will be expo...

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

"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

  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...

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...

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...

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 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 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 ...