Moving towards the year

Sometimes, I want to believe I am still dreaming. That I will be awake and hear you jamming in your room. Runner up wish that I wake up in the hospital after a long and messed up coma dream. But we all know that’s not real. The reality is you have been gone almost one year and all those in the wake of your passing still struggle in one way or another. Dad and I sometimes treading water, sometimes drowning in this ocean of grief. There are no poetic words for this, I just miss you kiddo, and part of me is no longer here.

I have learned a lot in this past year some good, some not so much, some in depths of faith I did not think I possessed. First off it is possible to cry every day for almost a year straight. Each tear either memory or cathartic. That in love and grief people can do some very unthoughtful or inappropriate they come from a place of love and helplessness. Let it go. At some point in your grief you will also lash out, be unthoughtful or inappropriate, hope folks can see they love and fear in you under that and move on with you.

So many times I have been reminded that other people lost my son as well. I know too well their grief. I can support them, Love them and listen to them. We can cry or laugh together. But I cannot own their grief or make it part of mine. Just as they are supporters of my journey, I am theirs but I will not compromise my own loss to work someone else steps. It sounds selfish but it’s not it is self-preservation and sanity. The put your own mask on before you help others. I cannot commune with people who love my son if I myself am an empty shell.

I am not moving on, just ahead.

 My goal once Mike came into our lives was to create love and safety like he never had experienced before and to walk and support his path of healing and growth. With our family and friends, we did that, we created a world where Mike’s job was self-discovery and growth. No judgments on the path he took and supportive of victories and even mistakes as learning tools. When I say I put everything into my son I am or had, I am not joking. My life became a mission to elevate his March 22, 2013 when he first opened that door and hugged me. Period, done deal that was my kid. My kid was not perfect and I never offer his memory up to martyrdom, we had a few blow outs, some he took off for a while. Each time we came back together the bond become deeper more intense as my actions and words matched for him. No matter what I love you and no matter what, I am here.I move ahead because I have to find in me the best parts of life so when I see my son next , my life was well lived and not wasted once he went away. Without him it’s hard, less light, less joy but I keep on until I figure it out.

I have been graced by God that the people in my life who are here are amazing and beautiful. That when I fall apart my son puts out a cosmic bat signal and the flood gates open. I receive articles, thinking of you or you have been on my mind. People force me out of my funks and have me go for a walk, get coffee or just be with others. My tribe is a gift and they keep me from drowning, as I come back to life my passion is to show them what words cannot express in my love for them.

I have also learned who I am by the dismissal of others. There has been some misunderstanding that because my son was not my birth child this bond was not as strong “as other parents” Different then birth moms sure but never any less. My role in this world was to stumble, fall, fuck up and be given another chance. I learned who I wanted to be not easily but I became it. Every part of me believes that God somehow instilled in me that all my life lessons was to be ready and strong. The woman who hates to be vulnerable will get this child who in life and death cracked open my chest and laid all my love, vulnerability and true self open for the taking. That my gift for becoming my true self was to be given this beautiful child, this peaceful warrior who came to us broken and abused. My life’s greatest purpose was to show my child how beautiful he was and allow him to heal in world full of light. My job was to create a community of joy that embraced my son, made him strong and when he passed he knew how much he was loved. That was my son’s heart’s desire to be loved unconditionally, and we all gave it to him. Birthing him did not need to be part of my plan. My child, Michael he was always God’s plan for me and me for him.   
 There I stood much in our life that says more to that than less. In some ways we were so similar, but vastly different but kiddo and I understood each other on a level that when we had quiet moments and talked about it astounded us. At times I overwhelmed him, he said so many times. After years of being told he was nothing, he had a mom and she thought, well I knew he was everything.

Not mine but so true, Mothers Day without your child

THE BLOG

05/12/2012 10:41 am ET | Updated May 10, 2014

Being the Mother of a Child Who Died — On Mother’s Day

By Claire McCarthy, M.D.

7.5k

I am the mother of a child who died. And that makes Mother’s Day very hard.
Recently I was talking to a mother whose child had just died. “What about Mother’s Day?” she asked, through tears. It was hard to know what to say, because it’s a terrible day for those of us who have lost a child. Other days of the year you can maybe make it a few hours without thinking about your loss; other days of the year you can pretend that you are an ordinary person and that life is normal. But not on Mother’s Day.
On Mother’s Day it’s in your face that your child is gone forever. On Mother’s Day you can’t pretend you are ordinary or that life is normal. All the hoopla, all the Hallmark hype, the handmade cards and flowers and family gatherings, make it almost excruciating.
Our town has a Mother’s Day road race for which I am eternally grateful — especially because, in a demonstration of grace’s existence, the start and finish are next to the cemetery where my son is buried. On my way I can visit his grave and say what I need to say and look yet again at the name we chose for him carved into stone. At the end of the race, they give all the mothers a flower; on my way home, I go back to the grave and lay my flower there. And then I move forward with the day.
See, that’s the real challenge after losing a child: moving forward. It’s almost impossible to envision in that moment of loss; how can life continue after something so horrible? But life does continue, whether we like it or not. There are chores to do and bills to pay; morning comes, again and again. So you pick yourself up and you live, but you are never the same.
At first, we are different because of our raw sadness. But over time, the sadness moves from our skin into our bones. It becomes less visible, but no less who we are. It changes into a wisdom, one we’d give up in a heartbeat to have our child back. We who have lost children understand life’s fragility and beauty. We who have lost children understand that so many things just aren’t important. All that is important is those we love. All that is important is each other. Nothing else.
It can feel very lonely, being the parent of a child who died. Especially on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We feel so different from those around us, all those happy people with children the same age our child was, or would have been. But over the years, I’ve come to understand that I’m not alone at all.
There is a wonderful Buddhist story about a woman whose son gets sick and dies. She goes to the Buddha to ask him to bring her son back to life; I will, he says, if you bring me some mustard seed from the home of a family that has not known loss. She goes from house to house but can find no family that has not lost someone dear to them. She buries her son and goes to the Buddha and says: I understand now.
That is what I understand now. It doesn’t make me miss my son any less, or Mother’s Day any easier. But it helps me make sense of it; loss is part of life. There are no guarantees, ever. Our children, and all those we love, are gifts to us for however long we have them.
I understand now too that we are together in this, all of us, in joy and in loss. It’s the connections we make with each other that matter — it’s the connections we make that give life value and help us face each morning. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
Years ago, I chose words to say each time I go to my son’s grave. It makes it easier to have a ritual. And over the years, the words have come to mean more to me. They aren’t just about about grief anymore. They are about who I am, what I have learned, and what I can give.
“I will always love you, “ I say. “And I will always be your mother.”