In The Beginning

“I don’t know how you’ve survived. It would kill me to lose my child.” Oh, to have a nickel for every time I heard that statement! I’d spend every one of those nickels for the answer, for you see, I don’t know how I’ve survived. Part of me didn’t survive. Part of me died with my son. All those hopes and dreams I hold close to my heart suddenly have become memories along with my son.

Since the moment of his death I have been a different person. I even have a different label; I like so many others are one of the Bereaved. Along with the overwhelming grief of no longer having my son to hold and care for, I face the daunting task of adjusting to this new role I was forced to take on. Going from an active parent to bereaved parent is as full of challenges as becoming a new parent, only more difficult because it lacks the element of joy.

First was the question: How do I live without him? He was all but my whole life…his needs came before mine. Joy came from satisfying his need for nourishment for his mind, body, and soul. Food, love, and attention were easy to give to James. When he died, I lost my purpose…he no longer needed anything from me. And so began the daily struggle to find a purpose…the struggle to keep living. Each day, after the initial despair of waking and realizing anew that he was still dead, I worked hard just to get up, to find some activity to keep me occupied. After all, I was still here---my task must not be finished.

Then it became how do I accept that James won’t ever be coming back? Once again, the search for purpose became my major occupation. The answer came in the form of my first grandchild. No, he doesn’t replace my son…nobody can do that…but I became became aware that with all of the challenges there was joy to be found in my grandson. James death also carried the high price of lost innocence, so to speak; because I now knew that it could happen to me. It did happen to me, and suddenly the truth that life held no guarantees would never be ignored by me again.

Then there was the transition in refining who I was in the face of James death and it is rather ongoing; How do I live in the face of other’s expectations I cannot meet? So many people expected my grieving period to be brief, no longer than two or three weeks--after all, so I heard over and over, life is for the living, right? For me I had to ignore others expectations and simply do what was and is right for me. I learned that bereaved parents don’t generally have role models for how to function as a bereaved parent, and had to grasp around for help, for clues, for anything that would and will help ease the intensity of our pain. My family fill my time, but everywhere I look, I see the hole left by what might have been if my son had not died.

Some of the people who expected me to return to “normal” have been disappointed, bewildered and annoyed that I continue to make reference to my son as I do. I have noticed that when memories of deceased parent’s aren’t met with the rolling of the eyes or changing of the subject the way mention of James’ death is. My son’s death took my future---each day is a loss, a loss of someone whose care for so many years was my primary responsibility and my defining purpose these years of my life. I can no longer be the person I was, a person untouched by the ripping pain of losing the presence of my child that I loved more than my own life, of letting go of the hopes and dreams I had for him, of watching my vision of a future as his mother fade.

Today my struggle is still and will always be ongoing. How do I find my way back to living fully? Every day, each of us decides how to spend our time---each hour, each minute. Do I spend those moments grieving? Today not all of the them. With each day that goes by I find fewer moments of grief and more moments of either joyful or mundane activity. Of course, some moments are filled with a flood of grief nearly as intense as the rending of the heart when James was taken from my arms the last time. But today, joy has returned---in painfully slow increments--to my home and to my life.

How have I survived? I don’t know. What choice did I have? Each step has been work, hard work, sorting through what it means and learning to function in the face of those circumstances not of my choosing. My work has served me well: my role as a bereaved parent is no longer the first way I define who I am, but it is ever-present in my life and cannot be separated from all that I am . . For the rest of my life.

But for those who wish to help the many, many of us who are grieving and mourning the loss of a child, “Just Listen, Quietly Listen” and please don’t tell me you know exactly how I feel. Unless you have walked in “Our” shoes you cannot truly know.

In Loving Memory of My Angel James.

Love Mom