Tag: grief

In The Understanding

I remember sitting, numb, in the big room inside the funeral parlor. The chair was uncomfortable. There were boxes of tissue on every flat surface. Scattered on the shiny table in front of me were multiple binders. Binders which held images of caskets and linings and flower arrangements. I kept thinking it all was a bad dream. That at any moment, my alarm would go off, and I’d wake up. Of course, this didn’t happen. Instead, I went to the store and wandered around, trying to find something for my daughter to wear at “her visitation”.

There are no words to explain the pain which accompanies a mother choosing her child’s last outfit. Up one aisle, and down the other, I searched for the perfect outfit for Becca. Finally, I found myself in the sleepwear section of the store. I saw a beautiful white silk nightgown with a matching robe. It looked so much like the simple dress she’d worn for her senior prom. This was what I had envisioned her in. Something that made her look like the angel she now was.

With the clothing chosen, I now had to decide how she would “look”. I told them I wanted her to look like the little girl that I had raised. Very little makeup. Her hair simple, in a pony tail, I wanted her to look natural. I needed her to look like herself. Even now, writing this, my heart is torn in two as I remember her laying there . . . covered by the Care Bear blanket she’d had since she was three. I’d always thought that blanket would cover her children someday, not be cremated with her.

Earlier today, I was in a position to hear two people talking about autopsies. Their conversation was light with some laughter. You need to know, one of the participants in this conversation is going to be a doctor. A discussion about viewing an autopsy is not perverse but expected of a medical student. Though this topic isn’t out of the realm of what is talked about . . . it completely ripped apart my insides as the memory of my daughter’s visitation rushed into the middle of my thoughts.

Because Becca’s death was brought on by the actions of another, she was autopsied. My daughter was killed on a Sunday. She was kept in the morgue, in one of those refrigerated drawers, until her autopsy sometime on Monday. I spent that time frantic because I desperately wanted to sit beside her, so she wouldn’t be alone. I wasn’t allowed. In my bedroom I sat, looking out the window into the snow, aching to be with my child.

The first opportunity I was able to see her was a few minutes before her visitation began. I was led into a room. In the center of the room, there lay my Becca, her hands crossed atop the Care Bear blanket. She was on a gurney because I couldn’t bear to see her in a coffin. A coffin made it too real somehow.

In a future blog, I’ll share more about the visitation. For now, I’ll talk about her autopsy scars.

I remember, hysterically thinking, why are they called scars?? A scar indicates healing. When I gently parted the robe across her chest, and saw the Y shaped incision, my heart nearly stopped. They were not scars. They were cuts. Cuts that were never supposed to happen to her body. Distraught, I felt wild to know if her organs were put back where they belonged. Was she treated with respect? Oh my God, I pray that she was treated with tender care. She was my baby. She deserved to be cared for, even at the end.

As I stood next to my daughter alone, having asked everyone to leave so I could say good bye, I arranged her robe back over the stitches and kissed her farewell. Turning and walking away from her was so incredibly difficult I couldn’t do it. I had to be forced to leave her side.

I’m writing about this today to convey a very simple truth. The meaning of something to us will rarely be what it is to another person. If I had heard the conversation I shared above, a few years ago, I would have exploded. There is too much raw emotion, for me, around the term autopsy. I am a mother who witnessed the remnants of the procedure on her child. The person who talked about it today is a medical student. Worlds apart. Completely different sides of the same thing.

We bring our own experiences to every situation. The little ones, and the big. In no way did these two people mean for their conversation to raise memories about my daughter. They couldn’t know it would shatter any peace I felt today. If they had, I am certain they would not have talked where I could hear them.

Most people are like this. They can’t know the memories behind every day things because they have not experienced them in the way a grieving mother has. I imagine, most of the time, people don’t realize why what they have said has hurt you. I doubt there is much intent in hurting us, further.

If you need to explode, then do it. Those who are close to you will understand. It took me a very long time to realize what I’ve tried to explain above. If you haven’t realized it yet, that’s ok, you will . . . in your own time. And your time is all that matters.

If you are one of the people who’s been hit by the fallout from just such an explosion . . . thank you for sticking around. We are doing the best we can to come to terms with all that’s changed around us, and within us.

The key is attempting to understand each other, even if we fall short in it’s completion, there is deep connection in the act.

(W)hole

When I found the foot high statue in the image above . . . I was struck by what it said to me. A perfect depiction of the hole left in a mother’s chest when her child dies. The gaping wound every bereaved mother suffers when her baby is taken from her. You may not be able to see it, but every single one of us has it. And we all protect it, for the rest of our days.

Over the past few years, finally being strong enough to venture out of my safe little world, I’ve met other mothers who have lost children in as many different ways as you can imagine. But don’t imagine them . . . they will break your heart.

One of the often discussed truths is whether it is easier to lose a child when you’ve had the chance to say goodbye before they go, or when their death is sudden, with no preparation or last words. I lost my daughter in an instant. In the time it took for a car to flip and break her neck. She was here, then gone. I didn’t watch her suffer bravely through a long illness. Holding her hand and telling her I love her as she slipped away wasn’t an option for us. On a Thursday I hugged her, not knowing it would be the last time I would touch her while she was alive. The following Sunday, she was dead. I am thankful for the conversation we had Saturday afternoon when we both said we loved each other. At least, I have that.

I know mothers who did spend their child’s last moments with holding their hands. Telling them it was ok to go. Stroking their hair and kissing their foreheads and easing them into what comes next. At times, I envy this seemingly peaceful farewell. Most times, though, I can not imagine having to watch my child circling toward their death. I don’t think I would be strong enough. Would I have been able to tell Becca it was ok to go? I’ll never know.

Then there are those of us who have someone to blame for our child’s death. A person(s) took the life of our precious child by their actions. There is deep rage when our child’s death is the outcome of someone else’s choices. I’ve shared in prior writings the fact that the drunk driver that killed Becca had been arrested just six weeks prior for a second drunk driving offense. His choice to drink enough to show an alcohol level of .28, then drive, took my daughter from me. From the life she was building.

When I wanted to see her, touch her, I was told she was “evidence” of a crime, so I could not. Later, I was informed that the driver would not be charged with vehicular manslaughter because killing someone while driving intoxicated is an intention-less crime. Intention or not, my daughter isn’t any less dead. A law that benefits the guilty. You better believe there is a deep anger inside of me.

Then there is the horrible truth of murder. The person had intent to kill another human being. Someone decided that your child didn’t deserve to live. That they had the right to decide to cause them death. I don’t know how to even begin to wrap my mind around this truth. There is another level of complicated grief when there is an actual person to place blame on for our child no longer being here with us.

What about the soldier killed in war? Who do you place the anger on then? Where do you direct your rage? Toward an entire people? Ideology? I don’t know. I’m not sure there are any adequate answers for these questions.

The one thing all grieving mothers have in common is the hole blown through our chest . . . the space where our heart used to be, whole. Every one of us lives with this state of being. The individual facts that surround each death make our grief journey our own. The smallest truths we have to grapple with, over and over in the still dark of the night, are what we must find a way to heal intimately.

The answers we need to find are most often within ourselves. You can’t give them to us. We need you to help us remain strong enough to keep walking this path. To know that, even as we sit quietly, our minds are racing over the facts that surround our child’s death. Very rarely do we have a waking moment that is not influenced, in some way, by our child being gone.

We all have an empty space and we are trying to repair it as best we can.

Broken Heart

For the past few days I’ve been giving much thought to having a broken heart. Right after Becca was killed I remember thinking “how is my heart still beating? It should just stop.”. Before I lost my daughter I don’t think I ever gave any thought as to whether a person can die from heartache and loss.

According to science, broken heart syndrome is a real condition. Just last year we saw it happen with a famous mother and daughter. The mother died the day after her daughter passed. After reading about the condition, I’ve learned the medical term is: stress induced cardiomyopathy. Women are more likely to suffer from this than men. It’s a reaction to a surge of stress hormones. These facts are clinical. Here’s my truth about a broken heart.

Mine shattered when I was told my daughter was the young woman dead in the body bag. There was “proof” it was her, but I didn’t believe it until a friend came back from seeing her. He told me they unzipped the bag and let him kiss her forehead. She was still warm. Inside of my chest . . . my heart exploded. As I tried to wiggle out of the police officer’s arms, so I could run down to my daughter, my heart beat so wildly and out of time that I thought I might have a heart attack on the same highway where Becca died. There are days, still, when I wish I had.

The thought that our heart physically changes when we lose our child won’t leave me. As if it DID blow apart, but somehow, quickly knitted itself back together enough to keep my body functioning. The pieces reattached to each other, yes, but not arranged the same as before. My heart is different than it was when Becca was alive. I am different. From the smallest cells to the farthest corners of my mind, I’ve been changed.

I also believe I’ve been both weakened and strengthened. I know that sounds odd . . . and makes little sense, but I’ll do my best to explain what I mean.

The cracks in my broken heart have exposed a strength I’m not sure I would have found if not for losing my child. A strength that every single mother gains when she gives birth. The moment we hold our child for the first time, and whether they are with us for an hour or seventy years, we have the truth we could lose them. We don’t often consciously think this thought because it’s too horrifying, isn’t it? Yet, we do know that to love so deeply means we may hurt as deeply someday, too. So, way down inside of our mothers’ hearts, there is a small seed of strength waiting to be called upon if we ever need it. Sadly, some of us do.

When my heart broke wide open and the blood rushed out, so did the combined voices of all the bereaved mothers before me. The lineage of women behind me, cried with me, as I mourned my daughter. I didn’t know it, but I was being lifted by my feminine ancestors. We are held by the hands of those who went before us. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, I thank them for walking with me during my journey.

All of this being said, personally, I would rather not have found out how strong I really am. I could live without the knowledge that a broken heart can repair itself. That I can march through the days, empty of my Becca, with some hope for my future.

Remember, even when we are alone, we aren’t truly alone. Our hearts can heal. Don’t expect to be the same as “before”. You won’t ever be that person again. The person you  become, however, will amaze you.

Let your heart heal. Your child would want you to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fearful

When the phone rang in the middle of the afternoon, a few years ago, I was surprised to see it was my son. Excitedly, I answered the phone and said hello!! My son’s first words were, “I’m gonna need you to not freak out.” That’s when I heard the sounds of hospital monitors in the background. And I did, indeed, freak out.

I started yelling, asking him if he was ok. Not taking into consideration that he was speaking to me, so he was ok. He told me to stop yelling, he couldn’t talk to me when I was like this, or he would hang up. You can probably guess he eventually hung up on me. With the promise he’d call back when I could be calm. When he did finally call back, I learned the details of the car accident he’d had on the slushy highway a few hours earlier. A crash that left him crawling out of a car, that had landed on it’s roof, in oncoming traffic. His only injury was a snapped collarbone, thankfully.

Even after I knew what had happened, I was still mildly hysterical, and a complete mess. My child was safe. He was hurt, but he would survive this. When I had calmed down enough to process what had happened, I realized I would never be the same when it came to my children being hurt. Bereaved mothers nearly always feel the fear that another one of their children may be taken by death.

Late last week I was talking with another grieving mom I know. She told me her very young son had been sick all day. High fever, lethargic. One of her sentences was heartbreaking. She shared she had been a nervous wreck all day, beyond worried. The truth that she’d had to bury one of her young children already was far too real to not take into consideration when her other child was so sick. This mom’s son was killed by a distracted driver. An adult who was checking his social media. Nothing this mother did led to her child’s death. He wasn’t sick. But even though the two situations involving her children were not the same, her mind circled the truth of child death. We go to the worst that can happen because we know it’s not impossible.

Even now, when my children travel to and from where they live and when I live, I am a ball of anxiety. They’ve had their licenses for years. They are both good drivers. Millions of people travel the roads of Michigan everyday without dying. But part of me is certain they will die, like their sister did, well before their time. When my son had a serious illness over this past Thanksgiving, I started to cry uncontrollably when he said he was going to play soccer, against the doctor’s orders. I begged him not to. Again, I was worried it would lead to his death. So much of the grief path is spent walking in exhaustion. Worrying about our surviving children, KNOWING death takes the young, we are always on guard. Always hoping to see the thing that might end their life before it reaches them.

Others, trying to comfort us, will say “oh, you’re worrying for nothing . . . everything will be alright.”. In our broken hearts, the truth courses through our veins with each heartbeat. No, it’s not always alright in the end. Like so many other things about child loss, unless you’ve been through it, it won’t make much sense to you. We don’t want to be a worried mess. We don’t want to struggle with allowing our child to live a normal life, one not full of our fears for them. However, we are forever changed.

I’ve shared before the fear I have for my twins who just turned the age my daughter was when she was killed. On January 11th, they officially became older than their sister ever did. For me, their life is delicate and could easily be taken at any moment. I wrestle with this truth and the other truth, I have to allow them to live their lives.

But it’s so difficult to know there is the chance that we may lose another child. To know this and to attempt to remain optimistic about the children we still have here. It’s hard as hell. Please understand this.
I want to take a moment to mention the mother who lost her only child. I can not speak to what it’s like to live in this reality. I haven’t experienced it. I do know one mother who did lose her only daughter. Her strength and courage amazes me daily. Maybe one day she’ll be able to share her feelings here as a guest writer. I think she has a story to tell . . . one that can reach the mothers I can not.

There is beauty in the broken. I see it everyday in the women I know.

All Our Children

My entire life, I’ve not liked meeting new people. I carry matching luggage filled with insecurities and self doubt. Since I lost my daughter, I’ve added new contents to these bags, which go everywhere with me. Though there are many additions . . . tonight, I will talk about just one. But it’s a really big and difficult one. For most people meeting others, it’s a question that’s asked an answered without much anxiety. Not so for bereaved mothers. We grow to dread this particular inquiry.

The question? How many children do you have. A common question for those meeting each other for the first time. I don’t like having to answer it. The situation can go one of two ways and either is stressful for us. Only one is stressful for the other party. I’ve reacted both ways, but there is a price I pay either way.

At times, we can simply answer with the number of children we have and the conversation goes no further. Often, however, the follow up question is asking us to share the ages of our children. This is when grieving mothers really start to panic. How do we answer this?

We can simply give the ages of our living children, then the age our deceased child left this world.

Ages are a weird thing. My twin boys just turned the age their sister was when she was killed, twenty three. In fact, on January 11th, they passed the age when she was the oldest she was ever going to be. They are older than their older sister. I can barely wrap my mind around this truth. If I answered in the way I’ve mentioned above, it would seem I have triplets, which isn’t the case. And the thought of answering in this manner has always made me feel uneasy, so I’ve not chosen to do it. I don’t fault mothers who do. We each have to choose what is best for us, no judgment.

Sometimes, in an attempt to keep the follow up question from being asked about our dead child, we don’t mention them. At all. It’s just easier, we think, to not have to make anyone else feel uncomfortable with our reality. This is a dangerous way to go, I’ve learned from experience, because we are left with a new guilt. We carry enough guilt for not saving our child, somehow, and now we are being disloyal to their memory by not admitting their existence. Internally, we are bleeding to death because of their absence, but we don’t let this fact show on our faces lest we cause discomfort in another.

I’ve chosen this tactic, early on in my new life without Becca, I am ashamed to say. The pain I saved the other person from feeling was heaped upon that which I already carried. The half dozen times, maybe more, I’ve done this have left me crying in the dark begging my daughter for her forgiveness. I don’t hide the fact she existed anymore. Not for anyone’s comfort. Not anymore.

We can, and eventually do, answer the question in a truthful manner. Not ashamed of the fact we have a dead child. No attempt to soothe their nervousness.. I’ve seen the look in people’s eyes when I’ve said my child is deceased. A mix of panic and uneasiness. They don’t know how to respond. And, I’ve learned, it’s not up to us to care how they respond. They’ll figure it out, or they won’t, but either shouldn’t change whether we talk about our child or not.

This is how my most recent conversation with a new person went:

“How many children do you have, Diane?”

“I have three. Becca, Gabriel, and Matthew.”

“Beautiful names! How old are they?”
“The boys are twins, they turned twenty three late last year. My daughter would have been thirty three.”

“Oh . . . would have been?” (that’s when the panic first flickered in his eyes.)

“Yes, she was killed ten years ago, by a drunk driver, she was twenty three.”

I saw his face grow red and he stammered something about having to get back to work.

Generally, this isn’t how uncomfortable this conversation can be. Most times people say they are sorry for my loss. I thank them and we move on. I have learned I can either chance the possibility that the other person will not react well by my answering honestly or I can omit my daughter’s having existed by leaving her name off the list. For me, the choice has become quite simple.

I won’t ever keep the life of my daughter to myself because of how others may react. I don’t care anymore. She’s my child. She was here. Her life mattered. Her death happened. I will say her name any and every chance I get.

When we begin walking the path of child loss, we are still finding our way in everything, because all we know has been replaced by our new reality. It takes a while for us to become strong enough to stand up to society’s expectations of a grieving mother. We have to find our legs and stand again. We must find our voice and speak again. We are the keepers of our child’s life. There is no shame to be felt for this.

For those of you who are on the side of the conversation, where you could feel discomfort, please don’t let it overwhelm you. We know we make you uneasy. That our child’s death forces you to face the fact children die. That if it happened to us . . . it could happen to you. The horrifying fact is: it can.

It happened to us. Please don’t add pain to our already anguishing journey. Stay with us and let us talk about our child. It’s the greatest gift you can give us.

Still Mothering

Behind me, there is a red set of shelves. In it’s former life it was a dresser. When I no longer needed it as such . . . I took the drawers out and made them shelves. I couldn’t get rid of it because it is a piece of furniture my daughter knew me to own. On it’s top, I have photographs, candles, and the marble urn which holds my daughter’s ashes. I always keep fresh flowers next to her urn. I call them ‘Becca Flowers’. Every night, I kiss her picture and tell her I love and miss her. I am going to do this until the day I die.

Another bereaved mom I know goes to the cemetery, to visit her daughter’s grave, every day. She decorates for the approaching holiday and talks to her child. I was privileged enough to help her choose new flowers, in the colors of Mardi Gras, to put in the wreath she keeps there permanently. We spent about twenty minutes picking the right flowers and color combination. The mom took much care in making sure the bouquet was exactly what she wanted, what her daughter would like. I understand her desire to spend the time and care she did in this small task. I do the exactly the same thing when I choose flowers to put next to Becca’s ashes.

Last week, I was talking to someone at work about how much I admire this mother for going to the cemetery every day to see her child. In response, he asked “Do you think that’s healthy?”. My immediate answer was “Yes.”. He asked me to explain and it’s taken until tonight for me to be able to put my reasoning into words.

When our child is born, and placed into our arms, we accept the responsibility that comes with being a parent. We help them learn everything they need to learn along the way. We love them completely . . . most times more than we love ourselves. Every single aspect of their life . . . we are a part of. As they grow, our role in their life changes. What they need from us moves from one thing to another, but it lessens as they grow more self sufficient. Then comes the days when they seem to barely need us at all. Yet we still have the deep calling to care for our child. It never goes away. Even after our child dies.
Especially after our child dies.

Try to imagine, if you can, having your child’s full life narrow to the size of a burial plot. Or a marble urn. All your mothering, the love you still need to give them, has such a small place to physically fit. The younger the deceased child the longer the list of things they never had a chance to do. Graduate from school. Attend college. Fall in love. Marry. Become a mother. Our child is robbed of so much.

Bereaved mothers are robbed, as well. Instead of helping my daughter choose a wedding dress, I chose what she would wear for the visitation. Becca will never call for me, while she’s in labor, because she needs her mom. All of those things, the mothering I never got to give her, still need a place to go. Where do I put it? I keep fresh flowers next to her urn. A candle burns every night.

Where does my friend do it? She keeps her daughter’s plot neat and tidy. Adorned with all the gifts she will never be able to place into her hands. I watch her rub her palms lovingly over the winter grass. Hear the words of loss and longing she speaks, as she places a kiss over her daughter, and tells her she’ll be back to see her tomorrow.

Is it healthy you ask? I think it would be unhealthier to have all of this love, and loss, bottled up inside of us with no place to go. We are mothers. Our child died, but we did not cease being their mother. Caring for the final spot our child inhabits is what we can do to care for our child in their absence. This helps us heal.

I hope those who have not lost a child can understand the importance of our actions when it comes to this. I also hope, very sincerely, that they never truly understand the truth of my words.

Our Winter

A few days ago I read a meme on Facebook that said “The path isn’t a straight line, it’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood, and see deeper truths. This couldn’t be more accurate in describing the path of child loss.

I’ve often described as traversing through a landscape which vaguely resembles what your world was before. Our lives get divided up into two parts: before and after. A boundary that is solid and immovable. In the after, as we look around, things are familiar yet different.

I remember wanting to stay stuck in the moment right after I found out my daughter had been killed. I knew I couldn’t go back to before, but I didn’t want to start moving away from the space of time she had been alive. I wanted the world to stop. Everything to freeze. I understood I couldn’t have her back but I couldn’t imagine a life without her. I just wanted to stay as close to my living child as I could. But we can only stay there so long. Eventually, reality forces us to look up and around us as we begin to bring our child’s existence to an end in the tangible world.

In the eighties, there was a made for TV movie called “The Day After”. There is a nuclear explosion and the survivors are forced to find a way to survive the nuclear winter that follows the blast. This is what life was like, for me, in the months following Becca’s death. Even now I wince as I write those two words together.

In my “winter of the soul” life was muffled. As if cotton surrounded me. Voices bounced around and I was never quite sure where they came from. Grey. There was so much grey. I couldn’t see colors. I knew I should be able to fashion words into complete sentences . . . but the ability was lost to me. As far as I looked, all I could see was broken pieces of what my life had been before. Pieces that were scattered across my entire world.

I remember I was in a panic to scurry around, on my hands and knees, trying to find even the tiniest pieces so I could put it all back together. It’s not possible. The biggest piece that was missing couldn’t be found in physical form again. My child. So I started to walk the path with my head down, eyes blurred with tears, and muscles sore from attempting to carry all the pieces with me.  Except, I’d stumble upon a piece, I thought I’d picked up already, over and over. I couldn’t figure out why. Had I dropped them? Or had they been stolen? Why were they reappearing?

Finally, it dawned on me, they are in my path again because I have acquired new tools. Tools that allow me to work on them and fit them in more accurately than the last time I held them in my hands. We learn as we walk this path. Even when we don’t realize it. We learn from others who have been there before us. They come back for us when we seem hopelessly lost, and walk us toward the opening. Answers are found within us. Answers we didn’t know we had. Or more accurately, we couldn’t see the first time we walked past them. They were covered with the thin grey layer that settled on everything when our nuclear winter began.

When I was young, I was sexually abused. This truth reared it’s ugly head into my life over and over. When I became a woman. When I started my period. The first time I had sex. When I birthed a daughter. But each time it appeared, it seemed smaller somehow. Weaker. Pale. It didn’t have the hold on me it did when I was a young teen. When events in my life triggered the thoughts, I was more able to examine them, then put them away until the next time. I knew there would always be a next time.

And that is what this path is all about. We are never going to get to the end of it and say “there, it’s done. I’m finished”. Our life will be spent holding the truth of the death of our child in our hands and finding a place to carry it. We look at it to see where we can fit it into our lives. We guard it. We mourn it. We live with it. We survive.

This life isn’t about getting over it, or getting through it, or even finding closure. It’s about finding a way to accept the truth and allowing it to live within us in a way that doesn’t slice our insides every single day. Child loss is our truth.

It’s a hard life. But it’s still life.

 

You Can’t Stop A Boulder

Once a week I have the opportunity to talk to other grieving parents. I don’t always avail myself to said opportunity, but when I do, I am stunned at what we have in common. No matter how we lost our child . . . many feelings are universal.

The one that is most often mentioned: guilt. We find a way of taking whatever happened and making it our fault. One mom shared a story with me. The story is of a little boy who was sleeping soundly in his bed. One night a boulder, that had been firm in the side of the cliff for hundreds of years,  came loose. The massive rock rolled down the hill, gaining speed, eventually crashing through a wall. Instantly killing a little boy as he slept soundly in his bed.

How had the boulder become free? A storm, years prior, had caused the river to flood and weaken the earth in that area. Somehow, the surveying team missed the danger when they inspected the area for homes. Four years later, the boys parents had chosen the home because of it’s good school system and close neighborhood. It had taken them a long time to find the perfect place to raise their child. As a condolence, people said that there was no reason for this to happen, it was after all, an act of God.

Those of us who have lost a child know what the parents did to themselves, don’t we?

They blamed themselves for their son’s death. If they hadn’t chosen that house, on that hill, with those rocks that had seemed so beautiful in the sunset, he would still be alive. If they’d never left their previous home then this would not have happened. For the rest of their lives, they will carry the guilt of what happened.

When I listen to other parents talk about the death of their child, I am amazed at how easily events can be described in a way that illustrates their responsibility. As their words spill from their mouths . . .  I want to cry out: It’s not your fault!! Yet, I do it to myself, too. I can manage to weave the recounting of Becca’s death into a tale that makes me the guilty party. Why do we have such an intense need to be culpable. Society isn’t blaming us, we are blaming ourselves.

I’ve heard parents say if they hadn’t sent their child to school that day, they wouldn’t have died in a bus accident. Or if they had kept them home when it began to snow, their child’s car wouldn’t have skidded off the road. If they’d said no to going to the movies, their child wouldn’t have been drinking in the parking lot and  succumbed to alcohol poisoning. The truth is, as parents, we can do everything right, and it still doesn’t matter.

If you are reading this, and haven’t lost a child, please don’t become terrified of allowing your child to live. You can not wrap them in a cocoon and keep them safe. If we are alive, we have to live life. Don’t change that. But, please, if you know someone who has lost a child and is struggling with this massive, and very common, guilt . . . share this with them.

A lot of times we won’t listen to ourselves, but it helps to hear it from someone else. We can let the guilt go.

Our children would want that for us.

 

Understanding Others

I often wonder what people see when they look at me. Does my pain show on my face? Is my exhaustion apparent in how I carry myself? One woman told me that I had haunted eyes and it was difficult to hold my gaze. I can understand her point. Who wants to face the death of a child unless you absolutely have to? I wouldn’t.

I didn’t notice it immediately, but eventually the fact that people would become uncomfortable when I talked about my daughter revealed itself. They’d avert their eyes, start to fidget, and attempt to change the subject. Awkwardly cutting conversations short when they didn’t want to hear what I was saying. Many of my friends stopped calling altogether. At first, I was angry. I felt abandoned. What happened to all those who promised to “be there” whenever I needed them? I would reach out . . . but my hand would comeback empty.

For a long time, I let the anger build. I told myself that I would never treat someone else like that. But how could I be sure? Then one day, when I was outside in the sun planting flowers, I had an epiphany. My sad eyes and broken heart were just too much for some people. And that was nothing to be angry about. If I didn’t have to live in a world in which the death of children existed . . . would I choose to voluntarily? Probably not. It can be a dark and lonely existence. If all of my children were alive, would I want to be reminded, often, that child loss occurs? I doubt it. So, if I can’t be certain that I would handle the situation differently, how can I judge others?

This realization was very freeing for me. I didn’t have to carry the weight of anger toward anyone. I could just let it go. Doing so helped me to be more able to deal with the things I had control over. The things I could do something about. I couldn’t change people. I had to meet them where they were, even if they couldn’t seem to meet me where I was. In a place that is so terrifying it’s hard for them to imagine.

The sun shone a little brighter that day.

The day we realize that we are not responsible for other’s emotions, or actions, is the day we start to put all our effort toward healing ourselves. We deserve this. Women, especially, have difficulty putting themselves before others. From an early age, we are taught to be givers. We need to add ourselves to this list. Find what you need to heal and do it. Every day.

Each of us has a switch inside that we must search out and flip. The “thing” that is going to cause a shift in our thoughts and move us toward wholeness. We can have a hundred people around us, never be physically alone, but that won’t help. The work we have to do . . . we have to do in the quiet moments inside of ourselves.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t lean on others, we can. And we should. We just have to understand our hardest work will be done within our own minds and hearts.

However, search me out if you need to. I am always here.