I am a mother that has lost a child and that loss has carved a permanent hollow in my being. We who have faced such a loss seek to fill that gaping hole - that enormous empty place - that place that once was filled with the warmth of our living child. As human beings we long for wholeness, completeness in our lives.
There are those that think that we choose to perpetuate that loss and hold onto that emptiness like a puppy that refuses to let go of a blanket that is being pulled away. They think that we hold on with an unreasonable fierceness of spirit and if we’d just make up our minds to do so, we’d let go of the grief that holds us prisoner.
Let me tell you that it is not so. In the beginning it might be true. Our grieving hearts reason that to let go of pain and grief is to let go of our child. We do hold on tight because that is all we have left.
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| Christian's Memorial Garden |
Eventually when we are able we look beyond our aching, hurting selves, we want more. We want our child’s life to have meaning to more than just us. We want to fill that awful empty void with understanding and good works. We want the sunshine, and moonlight, and starlight, and the magic and wonder of life to fill us and rekindle the zeal for life we once knew.
We don’t want to be sad and depressed. We want what we once had. I wonder at times what my life would now be like if my son had not taken his life. I wonder if in reality it would be much different on the outside than it is now. (That secret inner part of me will remain forever broken.)
My husband’s life has changed because of serious health issues and mine has changed in response to his needs. My children and their children’s lives go on as they mature and grow and crave out their futures.
As for me because my son’s earthly life with me has ended, I have had to climb mountains I never knew I could climb, I have survived swelling waves of grief that I thought I would drown in. I have been knocked down by pain, and grief, and depression and I have struggled back to my feet.
And most importantly I have been blessed with a richness of friendships that I would never have known otherwise. And I have learned from these friends and loving family members what love and caring and support really means. When I have felt crushed, they have lifted me up and helped to put me back together again with their understanding and kind words. Had my son not died, I might never have known what true compassion was. As much as I long to have him back with me, I have at long last accepted the realization that will never be so I hold tight to the knowledge that someday we will be together again. And my heart rejoices.
This has been a long, long journey and I have changed and grown and overcome much. There are still days that I am overcome with grief and longing but those hard, difficult days are now separated by days filled with sunshine and hope.
I look back to that first and even second and third years when I didn’t think that would be possible. I remember thinking when other survivors told me that it would eventually get better and easier that it was impossible. It would never happen. I thought my world would forever be gray and filled with shadows. Thank goodness I was wrong. It may take a while but one morning you will wake up and you will once again hear the bird’s songs and feel the warmth of the sun on your face. It may not happen everyday but that one day is all we need to know we have survived.
