Where you tread in mouring ( graphic warning)

Sadly there is buck to be made in death . Google grief  and besides lots of lovely true compassionate  groups and blogs  you hit the books and the tapes . The steps, the process, the signs , riding out the waves, the x method, they y method , all there for 19.99 or 5.99 ebook. All promising to relieve you from this hell called mourning. But with deep loss,if you ever experienced it, in some ways these books are a crock of crap . No one wants to say it or admit it. As humans we want compartmentalized answers, steps, plans control. But if like me you are living through or have lived through unbearable loss,there is no order to your grief , no sense and no control. You have to feel it when you feel it, ride what you are feeling even if it is not socially acceptable or rational. When you try to control grief it becomes an insidious trickle into your soul . The deeper the infection the deeper the damage. The more you control it your body becomes damaged. If it becomes gangrene to the heart and soul you get bitter, withdrawn or lean to victimization where you never have to account for yourself because you have had a great tragedy. You never become a survivor, you never find a path to light or passion . And then the great loss you had is not only a tragedy but a travesty. In the spinning wheel of mourning you get dizzy, disorientated, lost. But if you stop holding onto center, your core, well when the wheel finally slows down and you have nothing left of you , your fucked. There is no book for that . Its just reaching out to those who love you, letting others hold space for you and  seeing how others moved through their loss to a place where life in no longer the same but where hope and joy can be let in again. I am not there yet , as I tell my son each night I kiss his urn , I am trying kiddo but you were my life , I have to relearn it.

In the last 9 months , ironically the time span to create a new life , I have stood in a funeral home looking at three of the most important people in my world. My dad fought his cancer with the same strength he fought in the boxing ring . But even champions meet  a stronger opponent . He woke up long enough to tell my brother and I to take care of mom  and he loved us. My father's death was one that if you have lost someone to a horrific disease you hit the wall , where you pray that death comes to end the pain . I could feel every bone in my fathers body under that hospital blanket , I doubt he was even 100 pounds. The  night he went my mother was in their house and she told him she was ok , it was ok to go . He died that night and I watched his breath exit for the last time. The father I thought could beat anything didn't. Several days later it was just me in the chapel saying goodbye. For a man ravaged with cancer , damn he still had his swagger and looks. When mom went she had been having stomach pains and was anemic but one the mend. The doctors found no infections everything looked good. She laid down for a nap and never work up. As everyone says its the best way to go , painless and the way we would all like it . True but in all the craziness of death and family discord , when my son and I  stood in the funeral home with her,. I felt abandoned. I knew she did not want to be without him but I did not want to be without her.

Ok here is the graphic part . My son , my world , our pride  had one of those violent kinds of death . He came out of a curve into another slight one , overshot  and hit a tree. His seat belt was on, the phone not being used , airbags galore. His neck broke on impact and he died instantly. This was confirmed by the house right by the accident who ran out to help him and found him already gone. Wonderful Samaritan who I will never get to know or thank  used fire extinguishers to put out the car so my son's body was not burned. When the mortician let me in after hours that night to see him , I steeled myself for the worse. He had a bruise across his nose and around his mouth bit that was it. I saw the blood under the sheet and when I ran my hands across his body, I knew things weren't right , especially with his legs. But he looked in the face like my love, my Michael. As social media goes , fb lit up and without wanting to I saw what the car looked like and  I wonder what angel shielded my kids face so when I said goodbye to him, he still looked like my son. I thank God that when he took him, it was instant . That Mike crossed over and did not suffer. But in our society, I am not suppose to think about the rest of this, how my son died . Its not done to obsess on or be ghoulish but my child died and I was not there , my purpose to shield him from bad things failed. My son died in a  horrible, horrible accident and it was that an accident . But for me and some others  the "don't think about it , how it happened mentality" does not work. To make peace with that my son is gone , I have to make peace with it all, even the gritty, the visceral, the scary and the heart shattering. The story of my son's life includes his death and to push it out of my mind without accepting it would have left to toxicity in me. It had to pour out , infected and deep for me to clear that hurdle.Of course it hit me in most inappropriate spot: Portland traffic after a almost near collision of two cars in front of me. It was in fact that baseball bat to the chest moment and in all clarity , it struck me how my son died , not just that he was dead. I pulled over and sobbed for about 20 minutes deep wracking , painful, fighting for air sobs. Because even though he was taken with mercy, the light that completed Ty and and I's life was taken from our end in a violent way. He was literally ripped away from us. That part of me torn, had to accept this fact. And no one wants to talk about when you have to face that dreg hiding in your soul and how painful but necessary it is to purge it . If I had stuffed that , it would have quietly chipped away  from the inside to my mind and sanity. Now it is just part of our history , a tragic part  but still just woven into the tapestry that was Michael not the dominating factor. I can say now Kiddo lived for glitter and can say my son was killed on impact in a car accident. Both bring up feelings but neither lurk to hurt me another time.

So if your living this world of grief , feel what you feel , when you feel it . Don't worry what step or stage it is . Don't  hide it because you may make others uncomfortable, don't fear your feelings if they are outside the social polite norm . Feel because if you do not , the mourning goes deep in you and hurts you. At some point my life will have more joy again and less tears. I will not forget my son or ever stop missing or mourning him . But when I am in the place of more healed than hurt, my tribute to him will be a well lived life .