Goodbye

While walking around the neighborhood last week, remembering what we were doing this time last year, trying not to let my emotions drown me, I had an idea come to me that has stuck with me the last few days.  Maybe one of the reasons I miss Caden so much, why it still feels like there is an abyss in my life, is that I miss his spirit.

Many people have told me that they could feel of his spirit when he walked by them in school, when he was in their class, or simply when they read about his story-- they didn't know him in person, but he changed their lives and made them choose to do better.  Caden had a powerful spirit, one that was prepared and ready to go Home, that filled every space in our lives.  Having spent so much one-on-one time with him, especially the last year of his life, I think I felt his spirit more than any other person on earth.  There is something to be said about a mother losing the "flesh of her flesh," but I think that a big reason that I still struggle so much, which I know is absolutely normal and expected, is that I miss the spirit that he brought into my life.  He truly was, and still is, a remarkable spirit.

I knew this was going to happen today, but it still hurt walking up to it, seeing the space dug up and empty.  Someone sent me the words of another mother that lost her child.  I was going to use just one portion of it, but I want to save all of the words forever.  I feel them, I understand them, I know them.  And I hate them because they're real, and it really, really hurts.

For Grieving Mothers

by Dr. Joanne Cacciatore

I am a mother.  I am a bereaved mother.  My child died, and this is my reluctant path.  It is not a path of my choice, but it is a path I must walk mindfully and with intention.  It is a journey through the darkest night of my soul and it will take time to wind through the places that scare me.  

Every cell in my body aches and longs to be with my beloved child.  On days when grief is loud, I may be impatient, distracted, frustrated, and unfocused.  I may get angry more easily, or I may seem hopeless.  I will shed many, many, many tears.  I won't smile as often as my old self.  Smiling hurts now.  Most everything hurts some days, even breathing.  But please, just sit beside me.  Say nothing.  Do not offer a cure.  Or a pill, or a word, or a potion.  Witness my suffering and don't turn away form me.  Please be gentle with me.  And I will try to be gentle with me too.

I will not ever "get over" my child's death so please don't urge me down that path.  Even on days when grief is quiescent, when it isn't standing loudly in the foreground, even on days when I am even able to smile again, the pain is just beneath the surface.  There are days when I still feel paralyzed.  My chest feels the sinking weight of my child's absence and, sometimes, I feel as if I will explode from the grief.  Losing my child affects me in so many ways: as a woman, a mother, a human being.  It affects every aspect of me: spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  There are days when I barely recognize myself in the mirror anymore.

Grief is as personal to me as my fingerprint.  Don't tell me how I should or shouldn't be grieving or that I should or should't "feel better by now."  Don't tell me what's right or wrong.  I'm doing it my way, in my time.  If I am to survive this, I must do what is best for me.  My understanding of life will change and a different meaning of life will slowly evolved.  What I knew to be true or absolute or real or fair about the world has been challenged so I'm finding my way, moment-to-moment, in this new place.  Things that once seemed important to me are barely thoughts any longer.  I notice life's suffering more- hungry children, the homeless and the destitute, a mother's harsh voice toward her young child- or an elderly person struggling with the door.  There are some many thing about the world which I now struggle to understand: Why do children die?  There are some questions, I've learned, which are simply unanswerable.

So please don't tell me that "God has a plan" for me.  This, my friends, is between me and my God.  Those platitudes slip far too easily from the mouths of those who tuck their own child into a safe, warm bed at night: Can you begin to imagine your own child, flesh of your flesh, lying lifeless in a casket, when "goodbye" means you'll never see them on this Earth again?  Grieving mothers- and fathers- and grandparents- and siblings won't wake up one day with everything 'okay' and life back to normal.  I have a new normal now.

As time passes, I may gain gifts, and treasures, and insights but everything gained was too high a cost when compared to what was lost.  Perhaps, one day, when I am very, very old, I will say that time has truly helped to heal my broken heart.  But always remember that not a second of any minute of any hour of any day passes when I am not aware of the presence of my child's absence, no matter how many years lurk over my shoulder, don't forget that I have another one, another child, whose absence, like the sky, is spread over everything as C.S. Lewis said.

My child may have died; but my love- and my motherhood- never will.