Room to grow

Posted on April 21, 2014 by pathfinder

photoThe  new puppy has been, up to now, easier to care for than my older Miniature Australian Shepherd was as a pup. I credit the older Shepherd and my Pomeranian for part of this. I also credit my son and the things he taught me about guiding my dog to better behavior.

It is about that dreaded noun – consistency. I don’t always embody it very well.

My son was consistent and disciplined. As he grew to be a man he took suggestions well. He would weigh them, analyze them and decide if he needed to apply the suggestion. Exercise-both mental and physical were important to him.

Yet he liked the silly, frivolous, playful too. He would eat a dominantly vegetarian diet and then beg me to go find some of the most worthless types of candy in the world. My daughter and I discussed how much he would have enjoyed receiving “Bumpy Nerd Jelly Beans” this year. He liked a big box of Nerds.

He liked to play “Legend of Zelda” and enjoyed online gaming. He had a collection of comic books and was an early reader of “Calvin and Hobbs” and “The Far Side.” He liked music and sometimes the less popular and more eclectic “Atonal” music.

He had a list of books and movies and ideas he thought I should explore. It was not that he expected me to embrace or agree with anything I read or saw, he simply wanted to share.

My son would come to my studio while I painting. He would stand a good distance from me, in respect of my space. When I was at a stopping point he would comment. His sense of balance and design was very good. He would chide me every time I included a “red barn”.

Outdoors he walked with such confidence. He was comfortable on the steep paths, undaunted by the rocks and boulders. His stamina allowed him to run up trails that left me and others panting from the walk.

My son was protective, fiercely so, toward me , his dad and sister. Even if he did not agree with us he would protect our right to think as we did. He might discuss the need to change our mind at some point – but like in the studio he respected our space and gave us room to grow.

He gave me confidence. I felt safe with him both in what I did and what I said. He got me. His love for me, his dad and sister was palpable. I know all of us frustrated him at times as he did us. Yet, even with that, what stands out for me with him, his sister and their dad, is the love we have for each other.

My mother always said “actions speak louder than words” and in our relationship as a family – love sings.

The puppy is at my feet. His posture at rest, sleeping so relaxed and vulnerable, trusting me as he does to not move, kick him or crush him.

I think that is what family does if it is lucky – it relaxes, it rests and it exposes its vulnerability because of the mutual bond. It took a while to develop and learn from each other, encouraging the best parts of the individual for the common good of the whole.

Missing my son is a way of life now. Having my daughter and her husband home for the Easter holiday was good. Always when my daughter is home she has to overcome the feelings it kindles as do we.

Our loved one is missing. He added as much as everyone here added and his absence is apparent. We don’t shove our “missing him” in each other’s face, but we can read it in each other’s moods. Unspoken so many times is the longing to have things as they used to be.

I would love for my son to meet this new canine member of the family. I would appreciate his observations and advice. As it is, I am afraid, sometimes I am tempted to hug this little one much too tight and attribute understanding to him that he does not have.

I will continue to practice the things taught me. Especially to love honestly and to give love room to grow.

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Dogs, Family, Holidays, Pets | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

If only in my dreams

Posted on April 13, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_1821I don’t have to go very far in a day to run into something that triggers sadness or pain, regret or longing. While my daughter was home for a visit we have watched some movies. It seems that there is always a line or a phrase or a emotion expressed that I can collect to add to my applicable “quotes”.

She introduced me to a movie by Richard Curtis called “About Time”. In the movie the main character is young and tall and thin. As I watched the story unfold I realized that his character was living all the things I wanted for my son. It was a very good story and very hard to watch.

I don’t sleep late very often. Now with the new puppy (who is sleeping 7 1/2 hours!) I end up getting up before the alarm goes off. I am trying to decide if that is a good or bad thing. On the days I do get to sleep in when my husband takes the dogs out and quietly shuts the bedroom door I dream. My son is usually in those dreams. I am always so glad to see him and he is always confused about why I am so excited.

I hate waking up from those dreams. Yet somehow even in the dream I know it is a dream and I try to hold them only lightly. If I give them credence then I am stuck for a long time afterwards and I am tired of being stuck.

My friend who lost her daughter 20 years ago said “it becomes softer.” I think I might be afraid of that. If it is hard, if it is a struggle – then I have not forgotten. I am afraid that I will forget. I am afraid that dementia or age or time will take him farther from me.

Even now, almost 3 years since he passed, I cannot believe it. I see his photo and I cannot believe he is not here somewhere. I still ask the walls of this house, “how, how could this have happened?” There is no answer. There was no purpose behind it. It was the untimely, unfortunate, unchangeable circumstance.

In the news recently there have been accounts of so many unfortunate, untimely and unchangeable circumstances involving young people. I wonder if the grief somehow doesn’t settle out on us like the pollen in the Spring. The vibration of that sorrow rippling like a wave and those of so sensitized feel it acutely.

So what is there to do? Steel yourself for yet another day. Square your shoulders, put your well-worn mask in your pocket and head out into the day.

If there were words that could be said that would make me feel better I would be sharing with them with everyone. I would try to make sure those were the words uttered by each person willing to offer comfort. But sorrow trumps sympathy. The people who perhaps try to understand us the most are weary of trying and getting no where. So we try to let them off the hook and keep it behind closed doors, in the shower and at night before we go to sleep.

And sometimes we dream. In those dreams we can’t take our eyes off of our child and we want to hold them close and hear their voice. But as dreams do, they too move on and we find ourselves frantic, looking for our child again. We wake shaken and frantic with fresh grief. Unwilling to totally waken and fearing sleep- it is a sorry lot.

Dear Son, I saw your face in my dreams. You seemed so surprised by how overjoyed I was to see you. I almost crawled over the couch to get you. You smiled and laughed and seemed confused by my joy. I miss you so much.
Forever,
Mom

Posted in anger, Coping with the Death of a Child, Death, Friends | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

What the day affords

Posted on April 1, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_1819Are you able to help the way you feel? My mother used to say “I cannot help the way I feel.” I always thought that she meant that that applied only to her. She was allowed to behave any way she wanted to behave, blaming it on her feelings. You, however, were supposed to pull yourself together, take a good hard look at yourself, discard those parts of yourself that were unseemly.

Are we supposed to hide our feelings? Is it dangerous and does it put us at disadvantage to allow our feelings to be displayed? Is it like a tell at a poker game?

There has been a lot of attention paid to micro-expressions. The abundance of photographs of people in various situations has added to this study. Body language is a real thing. Yet I wonder how many people really bother to pay attention to it in themselves or in the person to whom they are talking.

I will blame my fascination on the fact that I am an artist and enjoy watching, collecting the postures and body language of others. Smiles that cross the mouth but do not light the eyes, arms crossed over the chest, a lifted eyebrow, a snarling lip are all there on display if for only a moment.

What does grief look like? How do we recognize someone else who carries that burden of pain? The wet blanketed look of the grieving or just someone down in the dumps?

In the initial stages it is pretty easy. I was the one who had not taken a shower or put on makeup. You could find me at 11:00 a.m. still wandering the house in my robe. There was a trail of tissues that you could follow to find me. My nose was red. My eyes were red.

Later I made myself get up, shower and dress. I even put on makeup knowing full well that by noon it would be gone. Moreover, I didn’t care that it was. I went out anyway. I ran errands and I faced people and almost defiantly waited for them to ask me if I was alright. I would have appreciated a good fight. But none came.

Either they were being polite, or, and this I suspect the truth, they did not notice.

If our grieving makes us tired, it wears other people out when it keeps going on and on as it does. Even the people closest to us struggle with our grief. Within a marriage each partner grieves at their own rate in their own way and sometimes the mismatch of these times is abrasive to the other partner. You are up when they are down and visa versa. You resent that the one time you are “feeling” okay, they are not and sit like a wet rag. It seems like extra weight to the burden. I think this must be the reason some couples part after the death of a child.

If we could just read each other better, would that help? Or would it make us so hyper aware that we would go out of our minds completely?

Yesterday, out of the blue, I was flooded by anger. Anger at the fact that life was continuing to go on. Anger that all of us eventually die. Anger that my son participated in such a dangerous sport. Anger at the absurdity of life, at the things we believe without adequate foundation and at the myths we hold on to that both bait us and cheer us. Anger at being taken for granted, for life not being what I thought it would be. Anger that my son is dead and that I cannot see him or hug him or talk to him or discuss this anger with him.
There was no one to take it out on, but the sheets I was trying to fold in the laundry room got a good thrashing. I eventually reined it all in. I did another load of laundry and I took the dogs downstairs and I painted. So I think in a way, I did “help” the way I felt. I gave it space and a name and I took a deep breath and I thought it through – if heatedly- though the sheets will never repeat what I said.

The terrible missing and yearning takes on epic proportions some days. It cast’s a shadow that is hard to get out from under. Trying to do so is the only help some days afford.

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In the moment

Posted on March 27, 2014 by pathfinder
The new man in town

The new man in town

We have a new puppy.

In August of 2010 we got a puppy. My son had convinced me that we needed a mini Australian Shepherd. One of his friends had a mini and apparently it so impressed my son he decided this was the dog for us.

We had lost one of our pomeranians-Cocoa and the younger remaining dog Ebby was a bit sad. She missed her companion.

We found puppies at a place that had opened purely to sell litters of puppies. We had seen the little blue merl male earlier and decided to go back and get him. It is a great memory, driving home with my husband and son and the dog we named Sky.

Our pomeranian warmed up to him quickly and because he was smaller than she was, she would wrestle him and play. She weights about 13 pounds and Sky weighs 23 pounds now that he is grown. He doesn’t seem to notice how much bigger he is than her and plays gently with and is very protective of her.

Ebby is 13 years old. She has a heart murmur and takes medicine for her condition. I talked with my husband and I talked to my daughter. I even talked to my counselor about the idea of a puppy.

We found the breeder who bred Sky, and we picked out another pup. It was a little girl, another blue merl. I had her picture and I picked out a name and then I received an email from the breeder. The whole litter had gotten very ill after their parvo vaccine and the little girl died.
I tried to figure out if I saw this as some sort of sign. But I knew that I was ready for a puppy and I don’t believe in signs. My son would agree with me. So from another litter we picked out another little blue merl male and we named him Newman. He is Sky’s first cousin.

My daughter and I went to pick him up. The breeder lives high up on a beautiful mountain surrounded by 40 acres of land. She breeds mini Australians and Border Collies.
The puppy is adorable. My daughter snuggled him all he way home, he alternately whining and licking her chin. My son would love him. He would laugh and think I am crazy for taking on another puppy – so much like having a new baby.

Ebby the pomeranian is acting like a puppy again, playing with the little 5 pound boy. Sky is not sure what to do with this gnat-like fur ball, but he too is warming up to him.
Newman doesn’t make me miss my son any less. Newman does benefit from what I learned from my son about taking care of dogs.

Living life is so much work now, regardless of what I choose to do. Having the puppy does divert my thinking some and claims a lot of the little energy I have. He is a constant responsibility and he does make me laugh.

Most days I have the thought hit me “is this all there is?” and “what, exactly, is it that I am waiting for?” Because every day it feels like I am waiting for something. I think I am always waiting for my son to come home, or maybe for me to go home to him.

I know people want to think they know how I feel- people who have not lost a child. I suspect they secretly think that they really do know. It really doesn’t matter to me anymore. I am not competing with anyone. They can think what they want, I on the other hand sometimes feel I cannot think what I want. I am stuck in an unending loop that may stretch to certain limits at times, but then comes back again, very close and uncomfortable.

I hate feeling this way, though I have come to accept it as an everyday thing. I hate not having my son.

I snuggle the new pup. He without knowing it is learning about my son by the way I treat him. He is here because my son convinced me to get Sky and now it follows that we should have Newman. It is my son’s fault. So many of the joys of my life are my son’s fault. And every joy is tinted with a thought towards my son and what he would have found in the moment.

 

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The compass

Posted on March 14, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_0990I sometimes look at old photos and the dates when they were taken and feel a jolt.  It occurs from the toes up like an electric sensation.  Just eleven months, just ten, just nine, just six, three, two, just one month before my son died.  I look so carefree, so happy, so clueless.

I understand that that is how we have to pass through out days.  If we knew what lay just around the corner we would stop in our tracks.  We would not be able to move.  Or maybe we would, thinking we ,James Bond like, could arm ourselves and attack preventing what was to come.  I don’t know.

We can eat all the right foods, take our vitamins, do our exercise, meditate, de-stress, decompress and get on a plane to visit our family and disappear in the South China Sea.  While philosophers and theologians pour over texts or debate the meaning of it all, for me in my small world, in my small town, it makes absolutely no sense.  I don’t get it.  I don’t even know where to begin to go to get it.

Sometimes I recognize the platitudes people offer as being their own defense against the unknown and unknowable.  It is easy to store up the arsenal of pat phrases, proverbs and truism but it does not shore up the coastline against the tide.  The wind and rain and waves come relentlessly driven by the laws of physics and a force that helped form us will destroy us.

Quantifying all the things that make up a person is like trying to capture the air.  Histories are written, biographies are penned about well know persons yet they are observations – not the event, not the person.

The person is gone.

Yet here and in every moment of my day reminders of him remain.  Ideas we have discussed, movies we have watched,books we have read, activities we shared, simple things and complex things and DNA.  Like the needle on a compass in one simple gliding moment my emotions all turn to point to him and where he has been and the space he still occupies in my mind and my life.

And I grow furious that the world has moved on.  The days keep dawning and I recognize the similarities and I rail against the differences.  And every subsequent loss to me and my friends and my family, every illness and, God forbid, death, adds one more stone tossed in this well of grief.

I never considered that grief was a state in which you could exist.  I thought it was an emotional state that like joy or anger came and went with time and situations.  It has become a color on my palette that tints every single day and situation I encounter.  I become angry at the power it has to stop me in my tracks at times, or turn a day with potential to one in which I get nothing done.

It takes practice and force of will to move some days.  And the days keep filing by revealing the tares among the wheat.  The grief that springs up shoulder to shoulder with the joy.

And still most mornings I wake after haven fallen asleep in tears – hoping somehow that it has been a dream.  A horrible nightmare that the sun will whisk away and that my son will call or walk through the door again.

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Stuck

Posted on March 2, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_9379The morning sky is yellow.  Clouds silhouetted darkly like stepping stones make a path to the sun that shines just above the horizon.  Air that hints of pollen and just a whiff of woodsmoke warms in this sun.   Already we had made the great curve and are on the course on that path around the sun that is called Spring in the Northern Hemisphere.   I feel the weight again that reminds me of how weary I have become of being aware of time passing.
It is important to give a name to things for humans.  It seems to be part of being human to qualify and quantify, document and label.  It seems a misnomer to lump the things I experience under one little title, “grief.”  There is more to it than that.
Yet it is easier to give it just a simple name for the sake of those I meet who don’t understand or recognize what they see.
I have fought for the longest time the notion that I am changed.  So many grieving parents have stated “I will never be the same.”  Maybe my frustration comes with the word “same.”  I don’t think I have ever stayed stagnant or the “same” for long.  Evolving, growing are words I like to think apply to me.  I have never wanted to stay the same.  I can say unequivocally however, that I did not want to change this way.
I know that not wanting change does not apply solely to experiencing the loss of a loved one.
Yet, the loss of other’s I love has not altered  me as the loss of my son has.  There are people whose change was rendered by health issues or accidents, by change of job opportunities and rifts in families.  Each of us because of this outside force had to try to learn to adapt.
My adaptation, as perhaps it is for others whose situation I am not familiar with, is a daily effort, an hourly effort, some days moment by moment.  And I suppose like so many others I find it frustrating, exhausting, depressing.   Sometimes I feel very angry and stuck.
Where once I felt care free I now feel guarded.  In social situations and upon meeting new people I feel the shield going up.   I watch everything and though not meaning to, by doing so I see so many many things that remind me of my son.
I am hyper-critical of what people say.  I hear them say the same things I once said not knowing what those things really meant.   I do not try to stop them because they have the right to think what they want, and hopefully they will never have to remember those careless words.  Hopefully their little house of cards will stay in tact.  I cannot impact their fantasies or illusions. Later I go away from them and stew around in my thoughts about how stupid I have been to think, to believe that I could live unscathed.
The death of my son has changed everything in my world.  Family members have noticed and perhaps some friends – but the rest of the world goes on.   I fantasize that it would feel good to take the world by the lapel and thrust myself into its face – like a gangster in a movie.  I imagine commanding the worlds attention and being able to shout in its face.  “What are you doing?  Don’t you understand how short life is?  Don’t you know how little time you have to learn to love? Stop.  Stop using God as an excuse to hate others!  Those you know, get to know well. Stop thinking anyone is really paying attention to whether your hair or clothes or house is just right. Stop thinking that you have any power.  Start paying attention to the pain that others have and learn from it.”
But this is as close as I will get to that.   And this is a sad effort.
The person I was before is the person my son loved.  I, in my stew of thoughts sometime wonder what he would think of me now.  I wonder if my grief would grieve him.
I struggle with the thought of what comes after this life.  Teachings that I embraced before cause me pain.  I haven’t figured out if I can discard them or just must live with the additional pain.  I realize that I am not alone.  I stand with legions that have gone before who have questioned and searched and gone down some pretty strange paths in an effort to understand what life is and why.
My faith in what man teaches of God resembles the worn out raggedy corner of a child’s blanket.  So revered but for all intents and purposes utterly useless to me in the dark and lonely hours.
I write these things and then hesitate to put them out there.  It is so depressing, but it is the truth about where I am.  And I, though wanting to be utterly unique, am not.  So I assume there are at least a few others who feel the same way.
I always wondered about people who make ice sculptures or sand paintings.   They put all that work into something that melts or that eventually scatters.   Yet those two things in particular may be the best analogy for me concerning life.  So much beauty that is so quickly gone, just like color of the morning sky which started  bright yellow but now a faded gray with the passing of time.

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Death, Faith, Family | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Falafel

Posted on February 24, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_0823I was in the car with my husband talking about restaurants and foods we like, I mentioned Falafel.   I like Falafel.  Our son introduced it to me.  He introduced me to a lot of foods and insisted I should like them.  My husband started laughing.
“Remember when you and he made Falafel?” he asked, “You all made the biggest mess.”
“We did.” I said smiling.  I remembered grinding up chickpeas, making dough for pita bread. I remember fresh parsley and tahini.   I remember the little patties coming apart as we tried to fry them.  I remember the spongy dough springing back every time we tried to roll out a pita and then the hours baking them a few at a time on the baking stone in the oven.
By the end of the process we had Falafel.  It didn’t take nearly as much time to eat them as it did to figure out to make them and get everything to stay together.   Figuring out how to make everything stay together is a tough process in life.
Faced with a whole list of ingredients that I don’t recognize and don’t particularly like now and perhaps never will – I am stuck in what I feel is a mess most times.  There are other people trying to help if in no other way than just standing by – lending moral support.  There is no recipe, no clear direction, no desirable end product.
I do have my memories.  My husband and I have lots of memories.
Our daughter was home the other day to stay for a visit.  Sitting in the den together, watching something on Public Television we remained quietly together.  I had that flash of recognition of how normal this time seemed and yet how alien.  The missing man was so obvious.  The missing ingredient.  In that moment without meaning to ,everything tips, the world tilts and the fragile nature of every situation is exposed.   I feel the need to grab it all and bundle it up because of fear and the truth about how quickly these moments pass.
There is dull pain and sharp pain and quick fluctuations between the two.  There are triggers that no one except my husband and daughter and I know that color our view of the world. I liken it to a web that is connected and spun around me and every move tugs at a different strand.
He is everywhere and he is nowhere.  His voice is gone and I so desperately want to hear it.
Each new season breaks my heart.
We laugh over sweet memories and then we settle into thoughts of how much we miss him.  How desperately we miss him.
It is a baffling routine that takes me through the motions of the day, punctuated with tears I cannot stop.  There is very little that I do that does not pull at one of the strands attached to a memory of him.
One of our local restaurants features falafel as one of its lunch specials.  It is very good, and my son would have really liked it.  I eat it because I like it and because of him and for him.  There is no avoiding, no sidestepping, no filter, no bargains struck in grief.  I make no excuses and will not deny the deep bond that still exists because of little things and big things we shared.
I still cannot believe he is gone.  It does not seem possible.  And yet it is almost Spring and I find myself looking for him, listening for him, longing  . . .

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Death | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

another 365 days

Posted on February 7, 2014 by pathfinder

IMG_0826Tuesday was his birthday.  I had been dreading it.  I cannot express why adequately or sort through all the feelings to find out which one fostered such dread.  I think it was the combination of the holidays lining up one after another, culminating in the final one – his birthday – without him being here.

Facebook served as a reassurance.  So many people reached out to me and my family.  Some of his friends wrote on his “wall”.  Others responded to a message I wrote.  Some simply “liked” what I wrote.  It was a simple keystroke for them to “like” my message and yet I wonder if some preferred to do this simple thing because, after all, what is there to say?

I read somewhere recently that we alter memories.  We change them and can even have false memories.  I know there are some things I think I remember but in hindsight I think it is because I have heard the story so often that it makes me think I remember.

I have in the past made a point of remembering some things.  One memory is from my early childhood.  We were vacationing on the outer banks of North Carolina.   I was standing in the bathroom of the house my parents had rented.   I was wearing a little two piece short set.  It was orange and yellow with overlapping circles.  I was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom by myself and I remember saying out loud.  “I am going to remember this moment.”  I remember other things about that trip.  There was a person who portrayed biblical scenes in driftwood.  The figure were all made from driftwood and terribly creepy.  All over their house they had set up these scenes.  I remember walking around looking at them with my family and wondering if I was the only one who was creeped out by these twisted forms dressed and posed in tortured ways.

I remember standing at the window of the den with my son a few weeks before his death when the straight line winds swept down the mountain breaking the big oak tree.  I remember my son standing with me at the window as we watched the trees bend.  I was ready to run to the basement but he insisted we stand and watch.

I remember watching him on the path ahead of me a few days later on the trail in Panthertown.  The sun oh his left shoulder touching his hair as he walked ahead with his dogs.  I revisit those memories remembering  the sound of the stream, the sun, my son’s ambling gait and his dogs at his heels.

The kindness of those he knew reminding me of his love and affection enhances all the memories when I recognized those feelings in him.  It is good to be reminded of his love.  It is good to know that others think of him, remember things I never knew about him, dimensions that I as a mother did not see.

I do not fear being forgotten, but I do fear my son being forgotten.  Perhaps it is because there was supposed to be so much more for him.  Weddings and other life events that occur among his friends will not be his to experience, nor ours to experience with him and selfishly I wanted to collect those memories.

There is a temptation to try to imagine, but then they become my imaginings and nothing close to what would be reality because of his own unique twist on things.  I hear myself think, “had he lived, I wonder . . .”  And just in saying it I feel the heaviness creep up and threaten to engulf me.

I bore this baby who grew into a marvelous man.  I love him fiercely and always will.   This February will pass and be replaced by another that I either will or will not see.  Very little makes any sense or even remotely promises to.

I wish, desire,covet more time with him and rail against the fact those days here in my life will not come.

This is the way my life is going to be now – for now – because it will change again before it ends, or I end.  Some times I do imagine him beside me – telling me to get up anyway and stand at the window – to face the fury of the storm where trees break like twigs.  It is frightening but I try.

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The “W” word

Posted on January 24, 2014 by pathfinder

316200_10150419338291351_1940393618_nIn less than two weeks is the 32nd anniversary of our son’s birth.   That February in 1982 was cold and snowy.  We lived in a little house in Chatham County where the wind blew through the beaded board and a wood stove struggled to keep us warm.

I worried about bringing that tiny little person home to that cold, drafty house.  We pulled the bassinet up close to the bed which made for poor sleep.  Every time he whimpered I was awake.  Reading parenting magazines (there was no internet) I had read that SIDS was more prevalent among low birth weight males.  I worried about this and probably disturbed his sleep more than I needed to.

I worried about whether he was growing properly.  He was very long and thin.  One time at the pediatrician’s office they questioned me closely – more closely than usual and my husband told me they were trying to figure out whether he had symptoms of cystic fibrosis.  It was an intern who was examining our boy and finally when the attending came I relaxed.

“Look at these parents,” she said pointing to us.  “They are tall and thin!  What do you expect the child to look like?”

I worried that he did not have enough stimulation so we enrolled in “water babies” at the YMCA.  I went expecting to meet more mothers but everyone hurried in spent their time in the water with their baby and hurried home.  There was no parental interaction.  Perhaps the competitive spirit had already taken hold.

A lot of parents I met worked outside the home, sending their babies to daycare.  I couldn’t bring myself to consider that.  Even though at the time of his birth I had a scholarship waiting for me in the School of Library Science to earn my Masters, I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t part with that little person.  I couldn’t stand to think he would do anything without me seeing it first.   We read books and did puzzles, we snuggled and watched Disney movies.  He developed a love of music and one day while watching Dumbo he crawled up on my lap and shed his first empathetic tear.  It was the scene where Dumbo’s mother is locked up and she reaches through the bars to hug and rock Dumbo.  The song  being sung was “Baby Mine.”  He was about 3 years old.

When his sister came into the world it seemed my son’s world was complete.  He doted on her and while displaying a bit of jealousy at times when she was getting attention (because she was utterly adorable) he felt it was his job to teach her things.

We moved to Durham County before he started kindergarten because I worried about how far away the school was in Chatham County.  One day I came upon my two in my daughter’s room.  My son was teaching his sister the musical scale on a little xylophone they had.  I taped it on a VHS tape.  He would tap Do and she would dutifully repeat – “Do”.  As they finished he looked up and proudly stated, “I can teach her anything I want!”

They were normal kids.  Riding bikes around the cul-de-sac with the other children.  Making friends that were hard to part with when we moved to the mountains.

He was mine for 29 years.  Yes preteen years and teenage years were full of angst and drama with both my children.   Turbulent and terrifying at times, they never left the house that I did not worry that something terrible might happen to them.

Worry.  It is a part of parenting for a lot of us if not all of us.  I heard one woman describe herself as a helicopter mom – always hovering over her children.

As hard as it was for me, as worried as I was in most situations, I allowed my children to go.

They had their own life to live. During his life my son lived in Colorado and Ohio.  He traveled to Montanan and Utah, Canada, Germany and Hungary.  He would have traveled more as he had planned were he still here.

My Daughter had been to New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Florida, Mexico, Germany and Zimbabwe.   She lived in Cincinnati with her brother about 6 months before he died.

The stretch from New Years to February the 4th has always been too short for me.  Coming right after the Christmas/New Year holidays my son’s birthday was easy for it to get lost in the shuffle when planning a gift or special event.

When he was young at home we would have a sleepover with all his buddies in the game room.  But as the years passed it was usually books or hiking equipment or camping equipment and later climbing gear he wanted.

It is hard to not buy things for him when I see clothes or books that he would like.   I still want to do things for him but there is nothing to be done.

Deciding almost 32 years ago that I would not pursue a master’s degree was the right decision.  I was a stay at home mom in a time when it was not popular.  But I have never been good at doing popular things.  I was good at being a mom to my son and daughter.

I still worry. I worry about things that are now in the past and cannot be changed.  I worry about the future and how things will be when I am older and do not have my son.  I worry that my daughter is the only child and has to deal with me and my husband as we age.

Worrying about things does not change anything.  It is a fruitless occupation.  I don’t know if at this point in my life I can put worry aside, though grief has certainly proved its ability to crowd out many things.    I think grieving parents sometimes worry that they will forget their child in some way.  But that, I assure you, is impossible.

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Faith, Family, Friends, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The New Year

Posted on January 10, 2014 by pathfinder

279254_2112688610808_2636463_oDear Son,

I don’t know what to say.  I so much want to talk to you.  What can I say?

So much of our relationship was spent in sharing time and space, in observation and just being together.  The things I want to talk about require your response and that is gone.

I put up Christmas trees (that’s right – trees – plural).  I pared the gift giving back quite a bit and it felt good.  At Thanksgiving I had a turkey that had been raised free range up on a local mountain here.  No one else particularly cared, but somehow had you been here I knew you would care.

I still suffer from what I can only call superstitious thinking.  If events start lining up in any way that resemble that time around the 4th of July holiday, I feel panicky.  I keep looking for a way to turn that around – to see the lining up of events in a familiar way as the foreshadow of good things and not bad.

New Years holiday has been the hardest.  It makes me angry for the world to celebrate the fact that the earth has made is trip around the sun again.  I would tack on the words “without you here” but the world doesn’t know that, think about that and you are in the past now for so many.

That infuriates me.  Yet I have put others in the past too.  My dad’s birthday was Jan. 7th.  It is difficult to comprehend that he has been gone for 16 years in April.   When I think of him it is not as a vibrant part of my life.  That relationship was nothing like what I had with you.

I wonder why I even try to compare those things or why, for that matter, anyone does.  It seems to clutter up the path we are on when we stop and try to figure out the nuances of human relationships.  Perhaps it is better to be an obnoxious narcissist.  But then if we were all narcissists no one would notice anyone at all!

Yet I am very self centered and selfish about a lot of things.  I really wanted to see you grow and continue to mature.  I wanted to see what you would do, where you would go, who you would influence.  I so appreciated your take on the world and I have so few of your words now and they were all written at another time- to a different audience.

The house in Ohio is under renovation.  You sister is having to endure the noise and dust.  The new owners are preparing it for their parents to live in.  Your apartment is being completely overhauled.  Besides the noise and dirt I know it has been hard for your sister to see these things change.  At the same time it may be good to see the change.  Nothing stays the same for long.

She sent me pictures.  When I saw them I reminded her of the time the rats came to visit after someone in your neighborhood began some sort of extermination program.  I remember you passing one in in the stairway in the dark, and finding one you had exterminated under you kitchen sink.  We had to laugh.

I try to remember the good things without the good things being exterminated with tears.  It is me feeling sorry for myself and the world.  We all suffered such a great loss with your death.  The world doesn’t know it- never took time to notice – but it has suffered a great loss.

Perhaps, this year, I should write down the things I can remember.  I wish you were here to correct them, set them straight.  I am sure I have embellished them.  But who would read them? Who would care? Or does that even matter?

For your dad and I – we do not pass a morning, a day, a night without thinking of you, grieving in ways big and small for you.  I don’t expect you to know that.

I also grieve for your dad, for the insights he has gained and never got to share with you. You would have liked to hear them because they concerned you.  I grieve for your sister who needs you as much as we do for your unconditional love and acceptance of us.

We carry you along with us in our hearts and minds every day.  Every day.

Maybe time changes the physical things of this life, but never our love for you or one another.

Forever,

Mom

 

Posted in Coping with the Death of a Child, Death, Family, Friends, Holidays | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments