Safety

We all want and need to feel that our world is safe, and I recently realized that I have not felt safe since Colby was born. Colby's lungs collapsed at birth and he had many upper respiratory issues as a young child. Even though I had a room monitor, several times I woke up to hear Colby gasping for air, struggling to breathe, turning blue. I don't believe I've slept deeply since then.

At three Colby was diagnosed with asthma, at age eight with depression, and on and on. There was always something, or several somethings, that made me believe that if I slept, deeply, something terrible would happen that I could have prevented, had I been awake. Turns out I could not prevent the worst thing that could ever possibly happen.

Close to twenty-five years of sleepless nights became a habit, and old habits die hard. I still don't sleep because I cannot find that sense of peace, of safety. I still wake up every hour and check the door to be sure it is locked. I check that the lights are tuned off. I check the floor to be sure a glass hasn't flown off the shelf by itself and broken, scattering bits of glass I might step on. This is not normal behavior. I know this even as I check, one more time.

This is not a scary, fearful feeling of being unsafe, rather it is the feeling that I left something important undone. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that because I could not save Colby that I am now overcompensating. This is yet another part of grief, another part of the process grieving parents experience. I am told my feelings, my behavior, are not unusual. Grief for parents who have lost a child is a lifelong process, and this is part of that process.

Now that I understand, I find if I talk to myself I can sometimes talk myself out of jumping up yet again to check something. I can calm my rising anxiety and ward off another frightening panic attack. And sometimes, I can reassure myself that my world is safe, even though it will never, ever, be right or whole again.

Bus

The big bus parked in front of my house looks like an aerodynamic whale in a black tuxedo. The bus pulsates and I feel the vibration of its energy. There are large wheels on the bus, almost cartoon-like wheels, but I know they are only for looks. This bus hovers and flies through the air, through space and time.

It is dark outside. The two people at my door are dressed in black business suits. One is a woman a few years younger than I am with dark red, shoulder-length hair. Her hairstyle is from the 1960s and her face is lined and severe. She is also slightly shorter and carries a walkie-talkie. The other person is a tall, thin, baby-faced man with dark curly hair who is probably in his thirties.

The two people and the bus are here for Colby. Colby is ready and waiting, and is eager to go. He has a duffle bag packed and gives me a hug and a kiss before he heads out the door. I try to grab him, to pull him back. I am frantic. Colby musn't leave! I know if he leaves he will not return. My fear and anxiety grow and the woman blocks the door as I try to run after Colby. She is surprisingly strong. "It's not your time," she says. I understand now that the two people are here not to escort Colby, but to keep me from following him.

Colby turns before he enters the gaping mouth of the whale bus. He waves. He is happy. "I'll check in on you," he says. Then he is gone. The two people and the bus disappear, and I am standing alone in my open front door, the night breeze swirling around my broken heart.

Events

I frequently get the comment, "But you always used to . . .." You can then fill in the blank: Go to the movies, attend business receptions, frequent favorite restaurants. The list is actually quite long. Many things I did regularly before Colby passed away I no longer do and there are several reasons for that.

One is that since Colby passed I have developed, not a sensory processing disorder, but something similar to that. Lots of sights and sounds, lots of people milling about, snatches of many different conversations, all overwhelm me. I can't think, can't breathe, can't focus. It is all too much. This apparently, while not common, is not unusual when someone is struck with devastating grief. It can last for years.

Another reason is that it takes me longer to do the things I do every day. I am not sure why that is but it takes more focus, more energy, to get my daily tasks done. The result is I am continually behind and when I catch up, I am physically and mentally exhausted.

When I decline an invitation I do hope the person extending it does not feel I am ejecting them or their event. That is not my intention. It is not how I feel. I recently read a great article by another grieving parent on CNN.com. I hope you'll check it out. The author is very eloquent in his grief, even though, for him, eleven years have passed. Grief is definitely a journey, but right now, today, I am not sure there is a destination.

Words

Music helps most people through hard times. For me it is, always has been, the beauty of words.


Grief grabs us by the throat and shatters our world into a million pieces.
Some days it numbs us to the bone and turns us into walking zombies.
Other days it pierces our hearts and forces a scream so loud it scares us into silence.
John Bowlby, M.D.

Your absence has gone through me
Like a thread through a needle
Everything I do is stitched with it’s color
W.S. Merwin

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach––that it makes no sense.
And when that happens the happiness is never spontaneous again.
It is artificial and, even then, bought at the price of an obstinate estrangement
From oneself and one’s history . . . .
Stoically he suppresses his horror.
He learns to live behind a mask.
A lifetime experiment in endurance.
A performance over a ruin.
Philip Roth

There is no tragedy in life like the death of a child; things never get back to the way they were.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you––all of the expectations, all of the beliefs––and becoming who you are.
Rachel Naomi Remen

Assimilation

From Colby's Notebook
Ain't it funny, how we serve money
Ain't it funny, how we die for our country
Ain't it funny, we were born a slave
I'm not laughing, I won't behave

Since Colby passed I sometimes think about getting in my truck and driving to the ends of the Earth so I can live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. Since he passed, my brain does not function as it did before. There is too much input, too many sights and sounds for me to process. There is just too much of everything.

Oh, how I wish the world would stop for a year, of maybe two, so I could sit quietly and wait for my brain to catch up. I'd like to take time to learn to breathe again, to breathe without the catch in my chest that happens every time I breathe in, the catch that reminds me, every time, that Colby is gone. I want to learn how to wake up every morning without the horror of remembering that my son, my family, is gone. Forever. I want to learn how to go to sleep without crying and to eat without the food tasting like sawdust. I want to learn to live this new normal that is me without Colby, and in today's busy world, I find that very hard to do.

Time is a luxury in so many ways. I'd love the luxury of one more minute with Colby. I'd love the luxury of time to assimilate Colby's passing into my life and integrate it into what is now me. For this is a new me. I am no longer the person I before Colby passed away. I am not sure who this new me is. I need to familiarize myself with me, but, there is no time.

Isn't it interesting that the word familiarize is so close to the word family? I am my family now. And, as the first year without Colby is now history, I find myself moving into a new phase of understanding, of learning. I just wish the world would slow down and allow me the luxury, the time to catch up. Then maybe I could find a way to assimilate it all.