Journey

Everyday I feel like I walk down an unknown path that has an invisible barrier that will not allow me to back up or return. This means I must go forward. It is my only choice. I do not feel rushed about my progress. I know I can stop and assess what is before me before heading there. But I know that at some point I must again put one foot in front of the other and move further down the path. I don't have to go far before I stop another time, but I must make some progress.

When Colby was small the Neverending Story was one of his favorite videos. I feel, too, as if my journey is one that does not have an end. Members of my online support group call it "finding the new normal." We each are so irrevocably changed after the death of our child that we are not the same person we were before. It is as if our old selves died alongside our child, yet we still live on here in some kind of never ending limbo. There are hundreds, thousands of us. Childless parents all.

It is a journey, this finding of our new selves. I learn from those who have journeyed before me, those parents who lost children three, five, seven, twenty years ago. Some are having an easier, a softer, journey than others, although no one's path is smooth. My path is taking me into a scary place. It's scary because I don't know where the path goes. I do not know what the destination, my destination, is. I don't know what more I will have to endure before I get there or how long it will take. I don't even know if I will know when I have arrived.

Colby was always pretty good at flying by the seat of his pants, at grabbing opportunities as they came. I need to think more along those lines as I have no idea what life is going to throw at me next. I hope it is a little peace, a little down time, some quiet so I can think, process, heal. I'm ready for the journey, wherever it may take me, but oh, how I wish I didn't have to walk this path, for that would mean that Colby was still here.