Friday, February 22, 2013

When The Terrible Takes Precedence

For unbloggable reasons, it's been a rough week.  One after another after another, those "not ever" and "never again" moments have hit me, relentlessly and repeatedly. 
 
I am surprised to discover that in many ways the fifth year is worse than the second, and the third, and the fourth.  I guess that each year another level of reality settles in, and in some ways the desire to live backwards rather than forward becomes increasingly intense.
 
What's the beautiful and the good?  That there are other mothers, that we can turn to one another and talk among ourselves.  Of course, that's neither beautiful nor good, since we have found one another because our children have died.
 
My friend Karen writes the following today:

"No one else can understand the landscape through which we walk - the vulnerability, the longing, the daily ache of missing our child, the frequent reminders, the life-long series of “no, not ever” and “never-again,” the unseen hazards that lie in wait for us like buried land mines. Panic attacks, PTSD, memory triggers,  the excruciating, debilitating pain of trauma-recall (like a punch to the gut) which we experience in the grocery store, on vacation, while driving a car, listening to the radio, surfing the internet – anytime, anywhere - these are not a part of the average person's daily life. You may work with us or socialize with us, but unless you are one of us, you cannot possibly truly know how we feel, and we hope that you never do, for your sake. 

Because of this, please consider us and our idiosyncrasies with a bit of extra compassion, for you do not know what we are seeing and experiencing. We may be standing right in front of you, yet not present with you at all. Though looking at you, we may have dropped through an invisible trap-door to the past, and be re-living the moment of our child’s diagnosis, or his death in our arms, handling her ashes, or that telephone call – the one which gave us the news which ended our life as we knew it. That phone call which started us on our journey, down the path which no parent wants to take."
 
**********
 
Sometimes these friends of mine, these extraordinarily gifted and gracious women  who do so much for so many, come across in their blogs as if they are on top of the world, healed and energetic and productive and happy.  And then I remember the seventies-something couple in my intern church, their son lost to suicide seven years previous, who were such lovely people and so engaged in the life of the church and the community, and how I asked them one day, "Are you really ok?" -- and I recall the tone in which they said, in unison, "Oh, no . . . no, we're not ok . . . we're not ok at all."  And so I am not surprised when my friends reflect on the feelings underlying the public faces.
 
One of my friends says that it takes skill, to live in the world as we do, and that we are learning.  I suppose, as Mary Oliver says, we go "practicing."
 
 
 
 
 
 

13 comments:

  1. I'm at 39 weeks and am also having a very rough time. I can barely talk to anyone for fear of bursting into uncontrollable tears. I find myself stuck in a constant loop of trying to comprehend the devastating idea that my son will never have all the opportunities and experiences in life that he was working towards and hoping for.
    Sometimes I try to rationalize that everyone dies, but then I remember that most people first get to live a full and fully developed life and I realize that my rationalization does not help me to accept his loss.
    Being so heart broken is truly a chronic condition of bereaved parents. No matter what we look like to others, we always miss and yearn for our absent children.

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    1. 39 weeks is about a second on the parental bereavement calendar.

      About nine months? For me, that was late May and I was finishing up my second year of seminary and preparing to return for the summer to make up the lost fall quarter.

      I distinctly remember a lengthy discussion in which I became engaged after an evening class in April, and walking away about an hour later thinking, That was the first time I have felt anything like normality for as long as an hour. As opposed to about ten seconds.

      I proceeded to have a complete meltdown in a Hebrew class a few weeks later. Hebrew? Because the verb under consideration was "to kill," e.g. to kill, to be killed, to kill oneself. I was completely out of my mind for a few days, and memorizing vocabulary at the same time. Welcome to our new lives.

      Sending you little slivers of strength for week 40. You get to burst into tears whenever you want.

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  2. That ministry of presence...happens virtually as well.

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  3. I feel so ill qualified to say a word, other than you have every prayer in my heart. Thank you for being who you are in the world.

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  4. Oh Robin I have nothing but a small Prayer to offer in the face of such enormous loss...but it is prayed fervently.

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  5. Robin, as difficult as it is for you to share, I want you to know that your sharing impacts so many people. I learn from you but I have nothing to give you other than myself and my prayers. God bless.

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  6. Timely words for me as I go this morning to reach out to a family whose high school son died suddenly during swim practice yesterday. Prayers for you all on this awful journey.

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  7. Robin, thank you for sharing this. Holding you in the light.

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  8. Trap doors is such powerful way of describing your reality. To never know when something will overwhelm you is beyond difficult. You write so beautifully about it; I only wish there was something - anything - that could help.

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    1. Karen G. wrote that! She is a genius.

      Robin (on another computer)

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  9. I was travelling when you wrote this and so glad I got to see it and the comments today. Let's hear it for blogging, and the permanent record that is at our disposal when we have the opportunity. I love what you and Karen wrote and Graham's mother's comments. It is such an invisible journey, and I am sure the uninitiated have no idea unless they read the words you all have written. I have a place to go where people understand. <3

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