The poverty of words to describe life now for me and my immediate family is frustrating.  There is no relief.  The descriptive words are inadequate and the words for the emotions are flimsy and diluted – a shadow of the meaning a shade but not the pure hue. We are not used to life as it is now.

The people who share this journey with us wear a knowing look but are also at a loss to express fully how they feel.  There is no analogy that holds up. There must be dozens and dozens of posters and “sayings” that have been printed and shared among the bereaved.  Words that hold a part of the common thread of the fabric but never quite hit the mark.

We repeat them to ourselves and to others but for me they so often feel hollow. My husband and daughter and I still participated in activities we participated in before.  We entertain and go to join in other’s festivities.  It is not the same. There is a vibrancy missing.  It must be in me – like my receptors for such enjoyment have been blocked or partially blocked. There is a tug for my emotions to head toward that expected “enjoyment” and it always fails, just short.  I observe others there where I once have been and would like to be.  I don’t begrudge them, not really.  I do, however, feel like I keep a sad secret that I hope they never learn.  And some mean spirited part of me whispers to the ache “they are blissfully oblivious.”

I shy from giving advice.  Not because my advice is faulty, but because if not careful it sounds like so much doom and gloom.

I heard a speaker say “just because you think something,  does not make it true.”   Later it was reinforced again by yet another  person on a television show talking about how as humans we have a need to be correct and so we will latch on to incorrect information but uphold it as if it is correct for our ego’s sake.  This information keeps rolling around in my head.   My son’s death and my perception of the world are linked now.  Was what I was thinking ever really true? And has truth itself changed or just me and my perception? See, the words are not adequate.  I can’t get to the bottom of it or anywhere near the top. My son and his words and insights are gone.

It has left a tremendous gap in my view of myself.   I refuse to allow it to become a disability.  I am trying to be very careful how I think about it because I understand as my need to be correct exerts its pressure that what I think is not necessarily true.

But this is true, I had a child who is now gone.  He enhanced my life and brought new things into my life.  He is still part of our family and with us in thought every time we speak among ourselves.  The fact of him lingers, just there out of reach.  And we are frustrated because (I must repeat from those poverty stricken words) we miss him and yearn for him. He was a huge in our lives.  Not of more importance than any other, but important.  And because he is so missing from us and our lives we are off balance.  It has been two years now.  Two years. I cannot quantify how the world has been diminished by the passing of one person from this life.    The ripples  circle out and out and seem to disappear, till another drop falls.