Not Everyone Makes It

After the death of a child, parents are thrown into the deep end of a whole new world.  A world they didn't ask for or want.  Personally, I liked my world just fine on August 5, 2010.  Then came August 6, when the troopers came to my door and told me that my oldest son was in a fatal accident.  Trauma of that depth changes you.  The person and the life you were before that is unattainable.  You will be different.  You are different.  I think part of what makes grief so hard is that we try to hold ourselves to the standard of who we were before, as do our friends and family.  They just want things the way they were - SO DO WE.  Grieving is a process of changing and accepting.

For eleven months, I have been navigating the deep end.  I have read so many grief books!  Been to regular grief counseling.  Joined a support group for moms who have lost older children.  Attended many compassionate friends meetings.  Read the compassionate friends facebook page and "friended" many parents who seemed to be struggling and navigating the way I was so we could help each other.  I have had grieving moms reach out to me and offer to walk with me.  They have been the constant voices encouraging me, pushing me, telling me that what I feel is completely normal even when I feel absolutely crazy.

Today, as I mourn the suicide of another grieving mom and my friend, Kim, it hit me that not everyone makes it through the deep end.  The navigating and changing just becomes too overwhelming and difficult.  Kim ended her almost two year struggle by ending her life at her sons grave.  When I spoke to the compassionate friends leader in Newton last night, she told me that in the many years she has led the group that TOO MANY parents have done exactly the same thing in EXACTLY the same place - their childs grave.  This is so deeply disturbing to me.

Not all grieving parents choose to end their lives but many more never find the healing and peace that is out there.  I sat next to a father at the last compassionate friends meeting that lost his daughter five years ago and it still brings him great distress and tears to even think about looking at any pictures of his daughter!  They are all put away in his home.  This dad hasn't made it either.

I do not want that life.  I do not want to be miserable and unhappy five years from now because of Max's death.  I am doing everything I know to do to get out of the deep end.  But many many more cannot or will not.  If you are grieving today, I *urge* you with every ounce of love I have to seek a new way of self-care and try something new to deal with the pain you carry.

My therapist told me that I am on a roller-coaster of crazy emotions and grieving, and that one day the roller-coaster would not make me sick to my stomach.  She also said one day I would step off that roller-coaster.  I believe that is true.  Will you join me?  Will you believe there is hope that one day that roller-coaster will be in the past?  I don't think Kim ever believed there was an exit from the roller-coaster.  I mourn her very deeply.  And I vow to fight even harder to find that exit someday for HER and ALL the parents who live without hope.