October 6,
2005. It was supposed to be a day that
we celebrated every year for the rest of our lives, instead it is a day when
grief floods my heart and reminds me of what should have been. It has been six years since we have lost that
little man, our first born child, our first true love. It’s been six years and although my heart has
healed a great deal since that horrible nightmare, this year has been a bit
more challenging than the last few for obvious reasons: another pregnancy loss, being pregnant yet
again and being pregnant with a boy once more.
All this being considered, it was a mere two days ago when I realized
that this anniversary was coming up. I
struggle with these anniversaries and dates, I have issues with specific
rituals and routines, I don’t want to memorialize the bad days, I just want to
hold onto the good. But when your first
child’s birthdate and death date are one in the same, it gets a little
complicated.
You see, six
years ago, when my fate had been presented before me, I had to make decisions
on how I was going to go forward. I had
to decide how this event was going to define me, who I was going to become, and
what I was going to do so that I still had choices in a situation that was not
my choice at all. I had to decide how I
was going to handle losing the only child I had ever known. You are put in a situation in which you have
to immediately begin making decisions on how you are going to handle your grief
for the rest of your life. And making
these decisions is hard, it’s gut-wrenching, it exhausting, and at the same
time you can’t believe you have to do this at all. One of the biggest struggles that I have had
in all of this was figuring out how I was going to remember my son. Of course I knew I would always remember him,
but our society, our culture is full of rituals and routines in which we honor
and remember those that have gone before us in certain ways. Funerals, burials, cemeteries, birthdays,
anniversaries: all things that help us
in our grieving process, all things that are meant to mend our hearts and
commemorate our loved ones. And along
with these events, dates seem to be the most important of all. Continuing to honor birthdates of our loved
ones, branding the death dates in our hearts of the ones that we have
lost. Immediately, I knew these things would
be hard for me, I knew I would struggle with some of this stuff, rituals and
routines haven’t always been my friend and I knew that I couldn’t rely on them
this time either. I grew up in the
shadows of grief, this grief thing was not new to me. I have
a history with this grieving and its rituals that has left my heart a bit
unsettled. There had to be another way.
I feel like
I have shared this story with you, although I’m not sure exactly when or in
what context, so I feel I need to revisit it to some extent. When I was 3 ½ years old, my younger brother
died. He was 15 months old. It was
a horrible accident. Seriously
unfathomable. To this day, I still do
not know how my parents survived it. My
experiences with grief started at a very young age. Many people ask me if I remember. I’m not sure how much I truly remember from
that date, from that age, but what I do remember is how that grief affected
those around me. I watched grief take
ahold of my family members, I watched grief grab onto the ones I loved and I
watched how grief never really left at all.
And I hope you understand that I am not saying that anyone did anything
wrong. My family handled their grief to
the best of their abilities. We grieved
like any normal family would have grieved.
My dad pushed down his feelings as far as they would go and my mom
fought the demons of guilt as ferociously as she knew how. My parents did an amazing job raising my
brother and I, and I often wonder how they did such an incredible job
considering all they had been through already, being such young parents and
tackling such a horrible, horrible tragedy so early on in their parenting years. Unfathomable.
But
something that I learned at a young age in watching those around me, was that
these rituals that we engaged in to remember the dead weren’t always healing,
sometimes they seemed to do more harm than good. I watched my mom suffer. As I grew up, I watched my mom strictly
adhere to the ritual of visiting my brother’s grave every year on his birthday
and on the date of his death. I witnessed
her suffering horrible bouts of guilt if there was a reason that she could not
get there, whether it was the distance or the weather or a scheduling conflict
of sorts. I watched this guilt surface
and take over her spirit and I saw how it penetrated the depths of her. As a child, it hurt to lose my brother, it
was painful, it was brutal. But it hurt
even more to see my own mother in the depths of her own pain. I hurt when she hurt, and I hated this beast
called grief and hated even more what its pal guilt did to my mom. I’ve tried over the years as I have become an
adult to rationalize with her that she does not have to do this to herself,
that it doesn’t have to be this way, but to her it does. This is what she decided long ago. This is what she has needed to do to
survive. This was her way.
I had my own
ritual as a child to help me work through my grief as well. For as long as I could remember, I said a
special prayer to my baby brother. A
prayer that I began saying with my mom every night and then continued to say on
my own as I grew up. I remember saying
this prayer every night and I truly believe that it brought me peace at one
time. But as I grew older, this prayer
became a burden of grief instead of a tool to heal it. If I forgot to say this prayer, I felt
guilty. If I was tired and didn’t want
to extend this prayer, I felt guilty. If
I even entertained the idea of omitting this prayer from my evening routine, I
felt guilty. And so after years and
years of saying this same prayer to my baby brother every night, I realized
that this prayer no longer served its original purpose and that somehow I had
to free myself from the chains of this grief, of this guilt and cut ties with
this routine once and for all. I don’t
remember exactly how old I was, but I remember it was painful, it was
torturous, but it was necessary. I
didn’t want to live my life in guilt. I
didn’t want to remember my brother this way.
And when I finally realized that he wouldn’t have wanted to be remembered
this way, I realized I could once and for all release this ritual, this
routine, this prayer and best of all, this guilt. And the amazing thing was, I didn’t forget
about him and I didn’t stop praying to him.
I just did it when I wanted to, when I needed to, when it was important
to. This was what I needed to do to
survive. This was my way.
And as I
lost my own child I began remembering all of these things again. I remembered how it hurt to see my mom suffer
and struggle with the guilt of grieving.
I remembered how a grieving ritual ended up doing me more harm than
good. I remembered all the things that I
didn’t want to do, that I didn’t want to adhere to, that I didn’t want to
become. I knew that rituals and routines
wouldn’t be my friend, I had too much history with this creature of grief. The only problem was that in remembering all
the things I didn’t want to do, I had no idea what it was I did want to
do. I knew who I didn’t want to be in
grief, I just didn’t know who I should be in my grief. And I still struggle with this. It’s been a hard day. There is guilt involved with grief no matter
how you handle it. I would feel guilty
if I didn’t acknowledge this day, but I try not to let myself get all tangled
up in and stuck on dates. We went to the
cemetery today, it’s a ritual important to Rob, but I don’t want to get caught
up in feeling as if I have to do this
every year. I also feel guilty dragging
my child into my grief. I want her to
know about our son, I want her to know he was a part of our family, but I don’t
want to get her twisted up into the rituals and routines of grieving for
someone that was never a part of her existence.
And I don’t want her to live in the shadows of my grief. But I also don’t want to hide my grief from
her. I want her to know that it’s okay
to express your feelings if you are sad.
It’s such a delicate balance with her and I question daily if I am
making the right decisions. In addition, I feel guilty imposing my issues
with routines and rituals onto others, especially my husband. It was just this year that I told him what I
am writing today on these pages. But I
didn’t want to impose my history, my beliefs on him. I knew he had to work through his grief his
way, not my way. He was doing what he
needed to do to survive.
Sometimes I
have a point, today I’m not sure I know what it is. Except that grief is complicated. There is no right way or wrong way, there is
just your way. And we all do the best we
can in our grieving process. It hurts,
it sucks and it remains with you no matter what. Remembering and commemorating is hard. We all have to do what we think is best in
order to survive the things that often seem impossible to overcome. And we also have to be willing to change
these things when they aren’t working for us anymore and I think this is what
is often harder than the grief itself. If
you are grieving someone you have loved and have lost, my heart goes out to
you. Be patient with yourself and
remember, there is no right way or wrong way, only your way. If you are supporting someone who has
recently loved and has lost, please be patient with your loved one and
remember, there is no right way or wrong way, only his or her way. I am still finding my way, I am still working
on my path through grief, and although my heart has healed a great deal, the
grief still finds me, the guilt still haunts me and I am still wrestling with
how my grieving process can encourage peace more than pain. But it
is this peace that I seek, it is this peace that is most important, it is in
finding this peace within your grieving process that truly brings about the
most change and promotes the most healing of your incredibly broken heart. So today, as I remember my son, as I remember
my grief, as I remember this date, I will remember to begin a new ritual: wishing for peace. Peace in my heart and yours, today and
always.
