June 18

Forgive me if I'm not responsive today to messages or phone calls. I may not even answer the door.

Today, all is ashes in my mouth, and I can't see through the tears.


I received this not long after my son's death 7 years ago:

Oh Mother, my Mother

Oh Mother, my mother
I touch your tears
invisible fingers
soothing your skin
I know you think of me often
in the day, in the night,
in your dreams
going into an empty nursery
knowing I'll never be there
but I am... in your heart
in your soul, I shall always be
for you gave so unselfishly
of yourself.
Inside of you, you created
such a world for me
a world of laughter, of love,
of sadness, of sorrow
every emotion people come to know
you shared with me.
And even though I may never
feel your arms around me
I felt your heart beating,
like a lullaby, singing me to sleep
and your spirit giving me a safe haven
already protecting me
nurturing me
preparing me of things to come.
But sometimes the journey
of life pulls souls apart
and yes, I had to go on
to another place.
I wish I could stay
I wish this was a decision
I could make
and I know you do too.
Know this wherever you are:
I will always remember
that yours was the first love
the first joy, the first soul
I will ever know
you gave me courage to
go on in my journey
I hope I can do the same
for you
Your heart beat will always
call me to you

Love, your child

Giving up the dead

The rituals and rites of funerals and grieving are not for the Dead. Whether they are in an Afterlife or simply cease to exist, what we who are left behind do, we do for ourselves.

Why is it is hard, then to give up the Dead?

Yesterday was as bad as the day of my son's memorial mass the week he died.

Do I hold onto his memory so hard because he was a baby no one knew?

Adults and people who have lived a life and made friends and memories are etched into people's hearts and minds. What memory is there of a tiny doll-like figure in a satin-lined casket? For most people, it is a fleeting image or a sad note sent in an email.

For me, who remembers every kick and hiccup, and bought little boy clothes, it is so much more: a loss of what should have been, but though some cruel twist of fate, a toss of the dice by some heartless god, was not meant to be.

I have not yet accepted the unfairness of it. In the grand scheme of things, when so many people suffer and die every day, what is the tiny spark of one small infant?

To me, it was everything, and still has a hold on me at the most unexpected times.

At the gravesite, I saw the same small toy someone had left at his headstone last year. We'd asked family and friends if they'd left it, but they all denied it. It was a random act of love, understanding and kindness, possibly from a parent who also lost a child nobody else grew to love and cherish.

I cried again when I saw the little Transformer toy; exactly the sort of thing which he would be playing with now, had he survived the delivery. I get a shiver when I hear some mother call out to a little boy, "Nathan, come here," or if I see a little boy about his age and wonder what he would have been like.

I am afraid that if I give up the Dead, it will be as though he never existed. That hurts me more than anything - that those nine months of dreams and hopes were for nothing. Now, with our family disintegrated, I feel as though I have nothing on which to anchor myself.

Yesterday, of all days, was the day when I most needed a pair of loving arms around me, and someone whom I could comfort as well, but I tend to shrug off offers of solace, instead reaching for my movies, books, my laptop, and a pitcher of Gin and tonics to help ease me to sleep.

I am drained of tears. I wept all day yesterday- in the morning while writing my first blog, on the way to the cemetery, at his grave, on the way back from the graveyard, even in the grocery store when I went to buy limes and a sandwich.

Now, a day later, I am utterly numb.

How do I give him up and let him and me go? Should I do that? Is there a right answer?

Nobody can give me a definitive response. Again, I have to forge my way through this alone. SO how do I accomplish this? By writing; by vomiting out every emotion I possess in the hopes that I will purge myself of it all.