I have been purposely avoiding writing, to see if it helps, to see how I feel.  It seems to make the words and thoughts pile up.  My husband and I have spent a miserable week together.  He has worked and I have worked and the silent evenings stretche on until we wander off to bed.  Last night finally we talked.

I don’t know why it takes so much time being around some people before the words that need to be said come out.  In this grief that we share we make odd assumptions.  We think we are shielding each other, protecting each other in an effort to not increase the feelings of grief.  The result seems to work in reverse.  The quiet is painful.  The facial expressions easily read.

As it turns out, perhaps not surprisingly, when we talk we find we are pretty much experiencing the same thing.   Both my husband and I having another bout with not being able to comprehend that this situation is real.   It is difficult to comprehend that our son is truly, irrevocably gone.

I so wish there were not others out there abruptly thrown into this place with us.  The horrifying news of acts of insanity, acts of war and accidents are splashed all over the internet.  Lives gone too soon and families left to struggle through the aftermath.  Every time there is news of a death I have to force myself to not rush to find out the details.  There is nothing I can do.  Family members of the deceased are now where we have been and are on the path we are now traveling.   I do not wish this on anyone.

The news media picks up the stories and feeds the public bit by bit, painfully sifting through the horrific details.  We have become conditioned to be their ready audience.

When the newsmen showed up here at our house right after our son died it made me angry.  My husband stayed inside and my daughter and I talked with them.  I demanded to know why this story should be on the nightly news. Human interest story.  They photographed my shadow and not my face.   They took footage of our daughter playing with our son’s dogs.  I talked with them because I wanted our son to be represented correctly from our point of view.  The footage is recorded on our DVR.  I have not watched it again since that day.  I don’t know if I ever will.

I am sorting back through and trying to remember what has worked (for a short time) this past year to make the days tolerable.   My husband had a “project” that is not finished.  He needs the distraction to keep his mind busy.   I trust he will find a new project to start on.

I will write, read, paint, knit, work on pottery, walk the dogs, teach a few watercolor workshops, shop with friends, visit with family.  All the things I did before with one hateful exception – there is one less person to talk to about what I am doing and why I am doing it.  One less person to discuss politics, culture  and the enigma of humanity and life as we know it.  One important person whose weight of being  provided balance in our family.

We are dealing with the reality of our insecurity in this world and it is frightening and uncomfortable.

J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series captures a sense of this.   In one scene  Luna Lovegood and Harry Potter observe and interact with the Thestrals that can only be seen by those who have experienced the death of a loved one.  There is an uncomfortable group of us now, looking into the face of something we do not understand and cannot comprehend.

I read the short biographies of those who died the other night at the theater in Colorado.  I wept for the parents and siblings and families.   I know that it makes absolutely no sense, and though psychologists and investigators will try to get to the bottom of it and angry people will point  blame the end result is the same.  Beautiful lives have ended.  Potential is gone.  Families are shattered perhaps irreparably.  The pain is there because the love exists along side the sorrow and we’ve never gotten a handle on either one.