Mother's Day #2 - May 9, 2010

Last year, the days leading up to Mother's day, which was two months after Josh's death, was worse than the actual day. This year, the opposite is true. I knew the day was approaching, but did not feel anything, one way or the other. We made plans to meet my parents at Josh's grave site and then take them to a nice Mother's Day brunch.

Then, last night, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was watching Star Trek and thinking that Josh would've really like the movie. In fact, I think the trailers were out in the weeks prior to his death. I began wishing for the "good old days", when we would watch movies together. He would stretch out next to me on the bed or on the floor, with the dogs curled up beside him. My wishing became a yearning, a longing, a desire so strong that I could "see" him next to me. Then the knowledge that it would never be brought on pain similar to the first days after his death - sharp, overwhelming, deep and intense.

I haven't felt much lately, but now realize that it doesn't mean the pain isn't there. It is ever present, flowing underneath the consciousness and at different times, will come to the surface and release, like a geyser, enveloping and drowning me in emotion. Then the feelings subside, replaced by a numbness - most likely the body's way to protect itself as one could not possibly cope with feeling such grief every day, for months on end. But this kind of numbness has its price too.

Despite Josh's death, life goes on and I am swept in its current. Apart from the geyser-like burst of emotions just described, I mainly feel a deep hollowness inside, a black hole or void that is in the shape of my son, filling every cell in my body. An anesthetizing emptiness - one that erases the enjoyment of life or even the desire for a fulfilled life.

I can relate so much to this poor father's words, describing what it was like to come back to an empty home, after the sudden death of his 19-year old son.

We had to face the empty house, the place where he died, by ourselves. The engine was still running as I turned to my wife and said, "All I have to do is reach up to the visor and press the garage door button and we can lean back in our car seats, hold hands, close our eyes and die together."

"Yes," she said. "I know its very tempting. But we could never do that to Andy. But if we didn't have him...." She didn't finish her sentence but we both knew how tempting and easy it would be to slip out of our pain. We both wanted to die and felt it would have been a wonderful gift if somehow we had a legitimate way to leave the world.

This feeling continued for nearly five years. We were not seriously suicidal, but we had no desire to live either. It's hard to admit, but it's a feeling shared by countless bereaved parents.

Dennis Apple wrote Life After The Death of My Son: What I'm Learning, seventeen years after his otherwise healthy son died from complications due to mono.

I recently went to a Pink Ribbon luncheon, an annual event raising money for breast cancer. The key note speaker was a women who was diagnosed with a virulent form of breast cancer while a young wife and mother, barely in her 30's. She became a warrior, fighting for her life which meant subjecting her body to untested medical treatment, basically becoming a human lab rat. And despite all odds, she has won the fight and has been cancer free for over ten years. Her story was motivating, I am sure, for all the women in that room currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

"What if that happened to me - post Josh?" Would I become a warrior and do anything and everything to live? Or would I lie down in submission and allow the cancer to do it's work? Being brutally honest, I don't have the energy or the desire to fight for life. While I would not do anything to deliberately put myself at death's doorstep, if the opportunity presented itself, I wouldn't fight it because I really don't care what happens to me now. I think this is what Apple means when he says, "we had no desire to live". I am indifferent to life, apathetic and uncaring.

And then I get a Mother's Day card from my 22-year old daughter that says:

Mom,
You'll never know
how many times your voice
on the other end of the line
has helped me get through a bad day....

....or how often I'll remember
some little piece of wisdom
you gave me
months before,
even though it seemed
like I wasn't listening
at the time.

You'll never know
how much it means to me
to share my feelings
with the one person
who probably knows me
better than anyone,
and who has become
such a wonderful friend.

I love you, Mom

Knowing what a hard day this would be for me since none of the kids would be here, she arranged for her friends who live in DC to hand deliver a beautiful flower arrangement to me - in her stead. It is a wonderful gesture of love and when I called to say "thank you", her parting words were, "Remember Mom, there are three other kids who love you very much."

So because of my three surviving children, if I were faced with the choice of life or death, maybe I could find the will and desire to live. For them.

God Bless