Please use this blog to help us remember Joshua Lee Anderson, who made the tragic and fatal decision to take his life on Wednesday, March 18, 2009. Please post any memories or thoughts you may have in the comments.


Friday, June 1, 2012

A New Dimension of Grief- June 1, 2012

How can it be the beginning of June already?  It is because time moves on, like a conveyer belt, with no thought to tragedy, grief, sadness, emotion or feeling.

An un-negotiable aspect of living is that one must move along with it.  But there is a problem - the dead are not with us.  Through whatever mode, they have gotten off and so are frozen.  In Josh's case, it was the fateful day of March 18, 2009.

And with time's relentless march forward, it feels as though I am moving further and further away from my beloved boy.

Why?  I wonder.  Is it because there are numerous experiences now, over three years later, that he does not share?  He missed both Lauren and Gillian's college graduation weekends.  He has missed three, soon to be four summer's worth of activities.  He has not been a part of three Thanksgivings and Christmas'.  He does not know his new baby cousin.

And so new memories of the past three years are fresh in my mind - memories that do not include Josh.  Is this why I feel further away from him? 

This feels true and is very sad.  And so my grief has taken a new dimension - of all the family experiences that does not include him.  At the beginning of my grief journey, I knew his death would mean a loss of future events/experiences.  Now, this loss is truly felt.

I think this is why our work with the Josh Anderson Foundation (JAF) is so important to me.  Not only are we doing good and hopefully saving lives, but it is a way to keep his memory alive and more importantly, a way to make new memories of which he is front and center.

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