Living with Loss

We're getting ready to take a wonderful trip and I've been so excited about it.  It's our escape from the holiday of Thanksgiving.  I just can't bring myself to do Thanksgiving the same way as we did before. It was our favorite holiday...visiting with family, filling our bellies with culinary delights, sitting by the fire, chatting about life.  It was the best of times and we loved it. So, now we run away from that beautiful memory of our past existence, hoping that life will stop being so painful. I bought a beautiful new dress and have been so excited about wearing it to one of the fabulous Vegas shows. I began packing and getting things together, then suddenly, it hit me. The tears began to rage. My chest began to tighten and finally the dam opened. Always like a fist to the chest, it knocks me down and I can do nothing but cry and hurt, and know there is no balm for this sorrow. I felt so ashamed, so selfish, for in that moment, I realized t...

So I took a walk this evening and it didn't take long before I began to notice the things around me.  I could feel the warm air on my skin and yet the heat of the day had subsided. As I walked past our neighbor's house, I was drawn to a pine cone sitting on the edge of their yard.  I picked it up and began to examine it... intricate layers, precise and predictable, becoming less organized and polished as it became larger and the tip bent and scraped by the ravages of time and nature. Then the pecan that lay in the gutter crushed by the passing cars, the dry fallen leaves on the sidewalk twisted and crumpled. The delicate balance of our own existence mirrored in the substance of nature. We believe nature to be so powerful, so resilient, just like we think our lives and our bodies are....but truly nature is fragile, mercurial and unpredictable, just like our lives. We expect to experience pattern and course to nature...winter, sp...

I've been very aware of Wyatt's death lately.  It's more than his absence.  It's his death from this life that pours over me.  In the past 9 months or so, I'd gotten to the point where I was sleeping...but now I have ever increasing bad memories and thoughts that come to my mind and steal my rest.  I remember being a child and being so scared of the dark that I would always have a night light.  Sometimes, I would sit up in bed to the wee hours of the morning staring about the room, terrified that some paranormal being would enter.  To the contrary, I'm not afraid some evil being will enter my home; but the perilous thoughts are the same. The feeling that overwhelms me is total fear.  I become whelmed with an irrational, uncontrollable fear that makes me so very vulnerable, so alone, so afraid. Thoughts of death and dying, thoughts of Wyatt's accident and death, the hospital, the doctors, the prayers, the surgeries, the nur...

I just looked at some photos of Wyatt that are hanging on our living room wall and gave an exasperated sigh.  It was not a grieving sigh, it was pure irritation with it all...fatigue, sorrow, resentment, anger, frustration and disgust all rolled into one big sigh.  Why him?  Why me? This death makes me question all the choices I made in life.  Why did I marry the person I did, would it have been different if I didn't marry or married someone else?  Why did I choose the career I did?  Why didn't I stay at home with my child like my heart told me I should?  Why did I waste so many years doing things for others and not for my child? Why do I continue to be this person I'm so angry with? Who would I be now if I'd followed my heart instead of being responsible?  Would my life be more filled with sorrow or less? I can't help but continue to ask myself the question, why my son, why our family, why me.  There are many others out...

DOES THIS EVER END?  I wonder some days if this will ever end, will I ever be able to step out of this cyclone of grief and be human.  Sorrow sits like a tumor in my throat.  I want to scream, hit, break things and curse at humanity. The senselessness of it all is baffling. Anger, like a cancer takes over everything else, it suffocates life and strangles any chance of healing.  If only I could control the anger.  If only they had paid for their negligence.  If only the country had laws that protected workers instead of companies.  If only corporations were truly made to be accountable for their employees' safety.  If only irresponsible workers and lazy administrators were fired.  If only grown men and women would act like adults. If only, If only, If only.... But they were not adults, they were not responsible, they were lazy; my son died at their hands, because of their negligence. For that my blood boils, for that I am angry, fo...

I realized that I'm not the person I was before January 1, 2010.  To complicate it all, I'm not so sure I want to be that person. That person had family, had a child, knew love, enjoyed life and this person that I am now has no family, no child, has no confidence in love and no ability to enjoy life as it is.  You see that person is too much for me to internalize, too painful to recall...I have to move forward without her...if only I knew how.

Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I can not attain to it. Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there your hand will lead me and our right hand hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night." Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike. Search me out, O God, and know my heart...