My father's death

I tried to make the 3 year anniversary date of my father dying August 23. It wasn't. I tried to make it today, August 25. It isn't. When I went to the cemetery today I realized it is August 28. I guess I am wanting the day to be over so desperately that I keep trying to make it happen. The actual event, the anniversary date or birthday, is always much easier than the days leading up to it. So even though it is next Wednesday I am honoring it today. You see, today I will allow myself the luxury of grieving my father's death. I say luxury because I seldom allow myself to go to that place. Whenever a person has experienced a traumatic event such as the death of a child, that takes precedence over any other life event. My father passed away almost 6 months to the day before Jacob died. The 6 months following my father's death I could think of no other pain greater than losing a parent. I was numbed by it but was just making headway in my grief when Jacob died. That event collapsed all relevance to my normal thought process. Nothing made sense or was following the natural order of life. So following February 20, 2010 that grief has taken over every emotion in my life. Yes, I miss my father terribly and long to hear his voice and see his sweet smiling face but I can't allow myself to feel those feelings because it means I have to go through my grief of Jacob again. I have to let my guard down, allow myself to feel, to think to be alive again to emotions. I don't allow that yet. A dear friend whose son has died several years before Jacob, Theo, once tried to explain to me how a mother goes on living. I wanted to know how she continued to breathe and just get up in the morning much less go to work and enjoy life. She said there comes a time when you take all that emotion and you put it in a little box hidden away inside yourself. You are constantly aware it is there. You know all it takes is one little peak and it will come rushing out. But for that day you put it away and don't go there. You don't dwell on it so intensely that you are sobbing without control. You don't sit and stare at the wall wondering how many more minutes left in this day until you can go to sleep and not think. You put all that emotion tucked safely away until you allow yourself to go there. I did not get it that day. That pain was too intense. I could not fathom making it through a day without tears, without a stabbing pain in my heart and a desire to quit living myself. But slowly I have found that even though that extreme heart break and sadness is ever present in my life I have safely tucked all emotions into that safe little place. Oh, it tries so hard to break free. You will notice it if you look closely. You will see me swallow hard and try to keep my eyes dry. You will see me excuse myself from the room only to return with red rimmed eyes. You will notice that far off look in my eyes only to be brought back to a startling reality with a jolt or even my reluctance to be with people. It is always there I just keep it safely tucked away. I go home some nights and sit in my closet and open that little box and let the tears flow. I sit at the stop light and heave uncontrollably until I can't see the road. I try to keep that box tucked safely away so no one sees. But to get to the box of my father's death I have to touch Jacob's. Not something I can do without tears flowing and my heart breaking. So I leave my grief for my dad to days such as this when I sit at his cemetery and tell him how I love him. How I miss him so much, How I want to hear his laughter and feel his tender hugs. I miss you daddy every day and even more when I see mom all alone. I sit in your chair and work in you flower beds. Trying to feel a piece of you with me. But I come up empty. I know where you are but I miss your presence here. Then I look over and see my son's headstone just a few feet away and it all comes rushing in. The pain, the hurt, the questions and it is all too much. My senses shut down, I can no longer hear or feel the sun beating down. All I can feel is that immense hole in my heart. With all my strength I stand and turn away. I tuck those two little boxes back in their place, get in the car and drive away. I put that shell back around me try once again to focus on living, on breathing, on being a mom and a wife. That is no luxury of grieving today. I miss you daddy.

One day...

Another life changing day for a momma and dad. My cousin called to say a friend's 22 year old son had died the night before from an accidental drug overdose. How many will it take? How many senseless deaths before we wake up and realize the dangers of drugs? Maybe it is not getting worse I just notice it more now. Maybe every time I read an obituary for a young person my heart wonders if they died the same senseless death. Maybe I still cringe whenever I hear an ambulance wondering whose life will be changed by that one phone call. So in hearing this news I looked back over my pages, my rants, my cries for help, my seeking answers and wondered if it truly has gotten any better. Does a mother ever recover from this type of devastation? I noticed a reoccurring word in my writings, breathe. Breathe. Why was that so important then and now? Breathing is a involuntary action of your body. Even if you pass out and have no control of your functions your body automatically will continue breathing. Your heart will automatically keep beating. So why was I so concerned with continuing breathing? The pain is so great in the loss of a child that even involuntary functions of your body do not want to continue. I remember walking down that hall and seeing the chaplain. Immediately, my blood pressure dropped me to my knees. My heart contracted so hard I felt like I was dying and my ability to breathe was non existent. My body was in shock. It was shutting down and my brain was unable to signal it to keep working because the news that my son was dead short circuited all pathways. You are teetering back and forth between trying to grasp for air and giving in to the urge to die. To close your eyes and not fight. To cease breathing, to cease living all in that moment. But slowly, someone pulls you back. That day in the hallway of the hospital it was the chaplain who picked me up and made my body move, made my heart keep beating and my breath to gasp out painfully. Later when time and time again when my body screamed out enough, no more pain, quit breathing, heart quit beating Bart would pull me back. He would remind me to breathe. To move, to will my heart to keep beating even though it was broken to pieces. Even today when I go to that place of pain I feel my heart constrict and not want to release. I will sit for seconds on end not breathing making my self slowly take a breath. I will myself to keep functioning keep breathing and heart beating because even though the pain is still so intense I see hope. No the pieces of my heart will never fit neatly back together. No, I will never cease to have my son at the foremost of my thoughts. And yes, I will still fall apart, and yes, I will still have to be reminded to breathe. But I have hope that one day it will get a little easier. One day one day.