Yesterday marked 5 months without my son. Everyday feels harder and harder. I am drowning slowly; every once in a while I can surface and manage a gulp of air but then I get dragged back under water. It always feels like my lungs will burst from being under but then I surface again just in time to survive. I just miss my boy so much. I want to hug him; I want to hear his voice. I want people to understand that I am still his mother and he my son. I want people to understand that forever I am changed and I cannot go back to who I was before.
“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” ― Mitch Albom
Zachary, Forever 21 
Unless people have experienced this, they just won’t understand. And frankly, I could not have understood the vastness of this pain before losing my son. However, people could learn to be more sensitive to us. Interestingly, some of my friends who are the most understanding and patient don’t even have children.
I think so many people just can’t bear to be around anyone who is suffering. Plus we are their worst nightmares personified. We all know that any one of us could be diagnosed with cancer, but the thought of losing a child is far scarier.
This experience has definitely exposed which friends are the keepers and which ones will always be superficial. And some discoveries are so astonishing…those people who always acted so loving before, but who have completely and totally disappeared since my son died.
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I know what you mean. 9 and a half months later (that’s how long I carried him inside of me, so, so long ago), and I am still struggling to breathe at times. I remember that 4-6 months was really hard. I got sucked back into work after that, and have just been going through the motions. But it’s like, any time I have a spare second, I break down. I have been keeping really busy, which keeps me functioning. But I really miss having time to just think about William for a couple hours. Every day, he feels further and further away. Every day, I lose him again, a little bit more every day. And while I suppose that this is what must happen, I hate it. So much. I am fighting against this with everything I have even though the war has already been lost. I am so sorry you have to go through this. Keep writing. It helps. And know you’re not alone, even though it feels like it, and you wish no other parent would ever have to go through this. We take your pain and add it to our own, and, as you know, our pain is already so great there is nothing that can increase it (infinity plus infinity still equals infinity), but maybe by sharing it, it might lessen it by the tiniest fraction. That is my hope.
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Mellissa, you are but a few days ahead of me. It will be five months on the 28th. I know exactly what you are going through. Time doesn’t heal, it only makes the missing him more acute. Sharpens the focus on what is now absent from our lives. The tsunamis are more infrequent but no less powerful. Keep swimming, grab ahold of this floating piece of wood and we’ll eventually make it to shore. It may be a distant and unfamiliar shore, but we may once again walk on dry land.
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I am so sorry for your pain. It’s been two years, 5 months since I lost my brother. I can’t promise it will get easier, but I’ve found over time I have become better at coping.
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We are never the same after such a profound loss. Surprisingly, there is peace that comes when you least expect it. I am proof and hope that in the months to come….years to come….you will feel the calm that comes from the hope that faith instills. As the song says, “a different side of me” is emerging…”how I used to be” is gone. I pray you will have peace.
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