Comfort

I dream of Colby, which I have not done for more than a month. We are in a house. There are lots of people here, people who are all part of a family, Colby's family. There must be more than thirty people on the ground level, all of whom love and adore Colby, and he them.

Colby shows me around the spacious rooms, then we walk out the back door into a beautiful garden. The garden and its wondrous flowers give way to a meadow and Colby and I walk through it.

"I want to stay here with you," I say. "It is too hard without you."

Colby tells me that is not possible, that good things are coming my way. Soon. He says he is with me most of the time, that he is helping create these good things. His life, he says, was complete. He learned all he needed to know and it was his time to go. Now he helps me, helps Colby's Army.

As we walk, Colby is on my left. Unlike other dreams where he wears a light blue short sleeved dress shirt or a light polo shirt, this time he has on a brown long sleeved T-shirt. The light blue jeans and white athletic shoes are the same. He drapes his right arm around me as we walk and pulls me tight. I feel his touch, feel him supporting me as we walk.  I am awake now, aren't I? I think I am.

I turn to Colby, but he is gone. I look at the tall green grass of the meadow. There are snow-capped mountains in the far distance. The sun is bright and the sky is a soft blue, but it is not hot. Nor is it cold. There is a lake to my far right. I turn to walk back to the house and realize I am standing next to my bed.

That morning I am presented with three wonderful career opportunities. I feel Colby's arm draped around my shoulder as I accept each one.

Snowflakes

I sit here and watch it snow and think life is like a series of snowflakes. Every day life gives us challenges and each one of those challenges can be considered the equivalent of a snowflake. Individually, a snowflake weighs almost nothing and individually, most challenges can be met. But when the snowflakes and challenges build up, then life becomes extremely hard.

Colby had many challenges in his life. Like all of us, some were of his own doing, many others were just what life dealt him. Over time, the weight of all those many snowflakes built up, first blanketing Colby in them, then suffocating him with their weight. At the end, Colby was buried under a huge drift of snow.

My job now is to find a way to rid myself of my own deep layer of snowflakes. If I melt them, they compact and turn to ice, which is even heavier than the snow. If I pull globs of snow away from me, it leaves huge gaping raw spots that may not heal. Best to brush the snow off a little at a time, I think, and try to dodge any new flakes headed my way. How to do that, I am not yet sure, but every day I will brush and dodge until the weight of my individual snowflakes is once again manageable.

Letter

RECENT DEAR ABBY LETTER

PARENTS WHO LOST A DAUGHTER ARE NOW IN A DIFFERENT PLACE

DEAR ABBY:

My beautiful 20-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident. I am writing this not only for myself, but for all parents who have lost a child, and to all of the wonderful people who asked, "What can I do for you?"

At the time there wasn't much anyone could do to help, but after two years I have an answer: Accept me for who I am now.

When Rachel came into my life, it changed me profoundly. Losing her did the same. Her father and I work hard to honor her memory, but we will never "get over it" to the degree of being who we were before. I am different now. In some ways -- I think -- better. I am kinder, more patient, more appreciative of small things, but I am not as outgoing nor as quick to laugh.

I know people mean well when they encourage me to get on with my life, but this is my life.

My priorities have changed. My expectations of what my future will hold have changed. Please extend to me again the offer of "anything I can do" and, please, accept me as I am now.
 
-- DIFFERENT NOW IN RIVERVIEW, FLA.

DEAR DIFFERENT NOW:

Please accept my profound sympathy for the tragic loss of your daughter.

I hope that your letter will help anyone who doesn't understand that the death of a child is the most devastating loss parents can suffer and that the experience is life-changing. They may get beyond it, but they never get "over" it.

To expect that they would is unrealistic, because it's a wound that may become less visible but never goes away.

Stars

I dream of Colby. It has been a long time since I dream of him so vividly. Months. Many months. In the dream Colby tells me that when he was here on Earth the brain in his body was wired differently than other people's brains. He saw the world through different eyes. I explain to him about schizophrenia and he says yes, that was his brain. He wants people to know that he was very smart. He is afraid people will remember him as dumb when in fact his brain was light years ahead of most of ours. He just could not cope with the differences in his brain, which were hereditary. I tell him that I was aware of Colby's intelligence, as was everyone who knew him. He is relieved.

Colby then says he likes the blue star. I have to think about that, about what he means. Then it dawns on me that the logo for Colby's Army, the nonprofit organization founded to finish the work here on Earth that Colby could not, is in the shape of a blue star. I had not considered it a star before. It was simply a shape that Colby drew over and over again when he was small. But it is. It is a star. And it is blue.

Then Colby says he loved the tree his friends and I planted in his memory. He tells me he was there that day, that he was the one who put the idea of the tree planting in my mind. Colby wants to know if we intentionally got a tree related to the goddess Artemis. After I wake up I look that up and find that Artemis is affiliated with the cypress tree. The tree we planted for Colby was a Leyland Cypress.

Colby also shares with me that my life theme is to be a peace bringer, that I am to help people look at the world through different glasses, to open their minds to ideas that are different that what they might currently perceive. He says he will help me in this and that he is here with me often.

Then Colby tells me he is curious about his death. He says he does not remember much about it other than he just fell asleep and there were beams of light and angels around him. When the angels asked him to go with them, he went. He is very happy where he is now. He says he can see the big picture and is pleased about what will come in the future for people on Earth.

Before the dream ends Colby becomes very excited and jumps up and down. He tells me I will write a book with someone who is very famous and the book will do very well. He won't tell me who the famous person is even though he knows. He wants it to be a surprise and says it will be a big one.

Colby has to go, he says. It takes a lot of his energy to visit me in this way. But he wants me to know that he loves me and is proud of me. We hug and I feel his presence intensely. When I wake up I have a sense of peace . . . and a purpose.

Busy

I stay busy. Too busy. Intentionally busy. Necessarily busy. I stay up late creating more and more work so I do not have that few minutes of down time between putting my head on the pillow and sleep. Those are dangerous few minutes. Those are the minutes where the tears are most likely to come, where the anxiety is most likely to rise. Where the panic begins. So I stay busy.

Of course problems arise, eventually, because no one can keep up a pace like that forever. My body betrays me in its protest. Exhaustion, aches, pains, lack of focus ensue. I must slow down. I must. It is hard. So hard.

In those few minutes between pillow time and sleep, minutes that stretch longer and longer the less exhausted I am, I vow to return to my mantra: "What would Colby want?" How would he like me to live the rest of my life? What would he want me to do? Where would Colby like me to place my focus? If Colby could come back and live through me, what would be important to him?

I know exhaustion is not one of the things he would wish for me. Nor would he wish me pain or sadness. What he would wish me is a life filled with creativity, horses, writing, and helping others. And down time, relaxation, time to enjoy life's little pleasures. That is a goal for me. It is no where near a reality. I have to learn to sit quietly without panicking inside, without  despair overtaking my entire being, without the empty ache that has become a black hole inside me.

I sit for one minute a day. Quietly. Sometimes. Hoping I can soon learn to be comfortable with two minutes. Or, three. Maybe. Someday.

Letters

Today I find a letter I wrote to Colby. It was a letter he never read, a letter I had never given him because I wrote it in case I passed away suddenly. It was to be my final words of encouragement to him, something for him to read after I passed on, never thinking that something that tragic would happen to either of us for decades. But just in case, years ago I tucked the letter into a corner of a drawer and in it I told Colby how much I loved him and that I would always watch over him. How, I think now, is that possible when Colby passed before me? How can I watch over him and care for him when he is no longer here?

Some might say that there is no need for me to do either of those things because Colby is now well cared for in heaven. I believe that is true, but as a grieving parent of an only child, my need to be a mom to my son didn't die along with him. That urge to care for him is still here. It is a unique position we grievers of only children are in. When our child passed, so did our role as a parent.

I find in addition to grieving for Colby, I grieve for my role as a mom. I grieve for the grandchildren I will never have. I grieve for the in-laws I will never meet, the weddings and birthdays and christenings and graduations I will never attend, and school plays I will never see. I grieve for what could have been, but will never be. I grieve for Colby, for my lost role as a mom, and for me.

The grief brings home to me that the loss of every person in its own way alters the course of the universe. There is all the love that will never be realized, the children who will never be born, the events that will never take place. It is very sad, all that loss. There is much to grieve for, and a lifetime of loss to contemplate.

Layers

It has been a month since I have written anything, probably a lifetime record for me. I have never not been able to write, so this has been a new experience. Thank you to all who have called or emailed to check on me. I appreciate you beyond words.

I have to admit, it has been a rough haul since the first anniversary of Colby's passing. There were so many thoughts and feelings and emotions swirling through my body and I couldn't grasp on to any of them. Some days I couldn't get out of bed. Some days I absolutely could not function.

Over time, what slowly began to emerge from that swirling mass was a visible layer of grief. Think of your body as a vibrant container of color. Maybe today your right knee is a bright blue and your head is a vivid yellow and your right arm is a brilliant orange. Every body part has a beautiful color and together all those colors make up you.

Now place a transparent layer of dark gray over each one of those colors. You can still see the yellow and blue and orange, but they are muted. This is the new you, more subdued, slower, heavier, grayer. The horror begins when you realize that this layer of gray will be with you forever. In years to come the gray may become lighter, it may become more transparent, but it will always be there. It is an entwined, integral part of who you are. Forever.

I hate the color gray.

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.

Time

Someone asked me a few days ago if I could go back in time, what was the year and day I would go back to that would have changed the course of Colby's life. It is an interesting question on many levels and I have given that hypothetical concept a lot of thought with no real conclusions. On one hand there were many factors that contributed to Colby's passing and nothing would have changed the fact that he had a genetic mental illness. If I had somehow tried harder earlier on to get him better health care, if I had given 1001 percent rather than 1000 percent, the outcome could have been different, or it could have remained the same.

Then there is the idea that interfering with Colby's life plan could upset the balance of the universe. Most are familiar with the idea of the butterfly effect. The theory is that a butterfly could potentially beat its wings on one side of the earth and cause a hurricane on the other side of the globe. It is basic cause and effect. If I traveled back in time to change the details of Colby's life, how significantly would that change the balance of the universe? Because Colby passed away, I believe several others did not. Many other people have told me they took notice of Colby's death and made changes so their lives would not end up the same way. What if Colby lived and they did not?

Then there is the thought of "what is supposed to be, is." Colby often said when he was a young child in elementary school that he would not live long enough to marry, have children, or turn thirty. Was his life lived just as it was supposed to? Or could it have been altered so he lived a long and productive life without negatively impacting the course of anyone else's life?

Of course, we'll never know. The question was put to me, I believe, precisely for that reason. There was not one defining moment that took Colby away. It was many moments over many years. And, it may well have been his destiny. Right now, today, I have to believe that what Colby instinctively knew as a child was right. The details might have differed, but the end result could probably have been the same. This hypothetical thinking will not bring him back, but it does help me put some things into context. The one think I clearly know is that I miss Colby more than words can ever begin to express.

Fourth

The Fourth of July was hard. These holidays either cause me great anxiety before the day and then are a non-event, or smack me flat from behind. The Fourth of July smacked me good.

I have many good memories of Colby on July Fourth. When Colby was three he and my Mom did the polka for hours before and during the fireworks. They had a wonderful time.

There was the year Colby was about six, when the 4th fell on a Sunday. Tennessee celebrated the Fourth that year on the third and Colby participated with his t-ball team in a parade and then won the t-ball all star championship. Then we flew to Minnesota and celebrated again the next day. By the fifth, we were really tired!

When Colby was about ten, we took our dog, Sundance, to a Fourth of July parade in Minnesota and laughed for years at the face Sundance made when the bagpipes came by. Poor Sundance, that was one of the few life experiences he had that he did not fully enjoy.

Then there were many really hot Fourths that we spent in the lake at my mom's, the years we had picnics, or went to a Twins baseball game, or went to a movie. Now it is so hard to deal with the fact that those years are gone. They are in my past, our past. I will never again share the Fourth or July, or any other holiday with my son. Life has turned into a really, really bad dream. But it is a dream I must live with and learn to make the best of. And, somehow, I will.

This year Mom and I went to the horse races and visited with her friends. Then, later, I sat on the dock with my dog, Abby, and watched as more than a dozen people set off fireworks across the lake. It was a nice time, but I so wished Colby was there to share it.

Coffee

My mom and I are at a coffee shop. It is one of those trendy places with couches and easy chairs haphazardly draped over the floor. Recorded instrumental music plays softly in the background. Young women with dark, spiky hair and black aprons tied around their waists serve coffee and pastries. They wear brown short-sleeved button down tops and short black skirts to go with the black aprons. The walls are painted brown and the furniture is all varying shades of tan, brown, and a deep maroon. It could be a dark, drab place. But it is not. It is cozy, almost den-like. It is comfortable.

Mom and I place our beverage orders. And then we receive them. Then we wait. As usual, he is late. Then he arrives with a flurry of hugs and apologies. Colby looks good, looks happy. He is not as relaxed as when I have seen him before but this, he says, is because he is busy. Colby knows all the waitresses by name and they treat him as if they know him, as if they are his friends. He has lots of friends, they tell me.

Colby and I take our beverages out to a porch. It is the porch of an old farm house and there are a lot of tall leafy trees between us and the road in front of us. The porch and its accompanying railing is covered with peeling white paint. Colby sits on a chair facing me and I sit in the porch swing. It is hard for mom to get around so she stays inside. "They will let her know what I am doing these days," Colby says, meaning the waitresses.

Colby catches me up on his activities. He is busy with a variety of things and I am so caught up in drinking up the sight of him that I forget to listen. I tell Colby that I wish I could see him more often, that I wish he still lived here with us. He looks puzzled. He frowns that slight frown and his eyes look quizzical. "But I am always with you," he says. "I am always there."

Then Colby looks directly into my eyes and it is his gaze that I see when I wake up.

First Year

As I approach––as we all approach––the first anniversary of Colby's passing, a therapist suggested I compare Colby's first year on Earth with mine. It's an interesting concept and was quite an eye opener for me. I had never thought much about my first year. However, as my parents split around the time of my first birthday, I realized for the first time that there could have been a lot of fighting. I know the house we lived in was tiny. How much of the yelling was I able to hear, to process? As an only child, it would have been just my parents and me. I believe my dad traveled, so my mom was also probably often overwhelmed in caring for a newborn by herself. For better or worse I will never know how that all affected me, although I am sure it did. After my dad left my mom and I moved in with my grandmother. My mom lives in that house still today.

Colby's dad, on the other hand, left when Colby was just five weeks old. After that it was just Colby and me, and fortunately for me, other than continual resperatoy infections, Colby was a good baby and a good sleeper. When Colby was six weeks old I found a job. Despite my wanting to stay with Colby during the day we had to eat and have shelter and the only way that would happen was if I worked. So, I placed Colby in the daily care of a wonderful grandmotherly woman who had nine grown children of her own. There was only one other child there, a girl who was about six months older than Colby, so he had someone to play with and watch and learn from during the day. In the evenings he and I did "babycizes" (baby exercises), which were in vogue at the time. Colby had excellent athletic ability and hand/eye coordination throughout his life, so maybe some of those early exercises paid off! We also read in the evenings, as I imagine my mother read to me. Colby and I lived in a mobile home in the country and the home was probably a little larger than the one I lived in my first year.

So, my dad was around my first year, Colby's was not. I stayed at home during the day with my mom while Colby was in the home of an older caregiver. I was not around other babies while Colby had an older child to play with. I probably experienced some fighting. Colby and I led a quiet existence at home.

What this all means, I do not know, but I do know that I will think about it. I am sure most of us rarely, if ever, have tried to visualize what our first year was like. It is an important year that shapes us in many ways. Thinking about those first years has given me empathy for my mother, and also empathy for myself. It is not easy to care for a baby no matter what the circumstances, but I believe every mother does the best she can. I know I did, and then some.

Movement

I have a new "yard guy." My mailman is new and the neighbors behind me have a new dog. Colby has not met either of these people, or the dog, and that is another reminder to me that life for those of us who are still here goes on. There is movement in the progression of life and that movement does not include Colby. That thought makes me incredibly sad.

Every day I am reminded that Colby is not here, at least not in physical form. I pass his favorite drinks at the supermarket and put several in the basket . . . and then take them back out. My cable provider requires me to install new converter boxes, something that is not one of my strengths when it comes to skill sets. Colby could have done it when he was four--and that is not an exaggeration. I, meanwhile, will most likely spend and entire frustrating day and still not get it right. I find (yet another) pair of his socks (in a box), wash them and begin to put them in his sock drawer. Then stop.

Counselors say that the mind of a grieving parent is overloaded similarly to that of survivors of post-traumatic stress syndrome. That's why we "forget" our child is no longer here, why we have trouble focusing or remembering to do things we've done every day of our lives. It's one of the many reasons why we eventually turn into different people than we were "before."

That change, or the evolution in our stages of grief, is another movement away from our beloved child. We must go on without them, yet every time we turn around their absence is a gaping hole in our lives. I greet the new yard man. Wave at the new postman and introduce Abby, my dog, Colby's and mine, to the new dog behind us. I do all of this in a wave of grief, for they are more reminders that Colby has really and truly moved on.

e e cummings

Colby liked the poet e e cummings, mostly, I believe, because cummings wrote many poems in lower case and with little, if any, punctuation. Colby hated punctuation. He felt it was limiting, and who is to say he was wrong? Words aren't always for the writer to convey. Sometimes they are for the reader to interpret.

Here's the beginning one of Colby's favorites:


why must itself up every of a park
why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?

Here's a favorite of mine:

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Better

Sorry for the lapse in posts and thank you all for emailing me. I am okay, just still very tired. Colby was always the one who could tell from the sound of my voice or the look on my face that I was not well. He saw and heard long before anyone else, including myself, that I was too tired, or coming down with something. Now, with Colby gone, without his eagle eye and keen ear, I find myself doing too much and not stopping to rest.

I feel as if I have not really rested in years. A week or so ago my symptoms had reached the scary stage and I knew I was either sick with something very serious or long past exhaustion. Fortunately, now that I have had a little rest, I believe it is the latter. I am just tired and it is a tiredness that won't go away with a good night's sleep--or even two night's sleep. This is a deep mental and physical and emotional exhaustion that will take much time and rest to overcome and I am taking steps to make that happen. Ten hours of down time every day rather than four, half of an over the counter sleep aid if I can't fall asleep, at least two days off a month.

I have not had a vacation in over thirty years and in past years I have only taken a few days off the entire year. It's not that I am a martyr or a glutton for punishment. It was a matter of survival, of managing my work load, Colby's troubles, and my mom's aging. But, Colby was always there to say, "Stop, you are getting sick." Without that touchstone in recent months I have pushed myself too far, for too long.

The good news is that I am now much more aware of what my body is telling me. I am now feeling better than I have in a long time, although I know I have a long way to go before I am where I need to be. I am fortunate that I am able to rest during the day when I need to. For the most part I can get my work done at any hour of the day or night. In that, at least, I am blessed.

Art

Every year for Mother’s Day Colby gave me something he created. It might have been a drawing, something he made from wood (such as a garden stool), or a poem. A few years ago Colby gave me the painting you see at the top of this post. In keeping with his belief about using everything and throwing nothing away that had any possible use, this painting is done on a piece of cardboard. For this painting he also used paint that was left over from other projects.

The reason I like this painting so much is not just because I think it is beautiful, it’s because the gold in the mountains is paint that was left over from the time we went to Bowie Park in Fairview and gathered pine cones that we tipped with gold and gave to friends as Christmas gifts. The red is from when Colby made a CD storage bin out of popsicle sticks for my mother and painted it. The cardboard is from boxes of books I had delivered for a book signing that Colby helped me stack, and the darker background is paint that was left over from the time Colby and I painted my toy box from when I was a child. The toy box was more recently his, and now resides in the spare bedroom as a bookshelf. Before it was my toy box, it was a storage chest during WWII when my mother was in the Marines.

This is just one of many paintings that Colby did. Most are abstracts and reflect the way he was feeling at the time he painted them. All make excellent use of color and design. Today as I clean out more “stuff” from his room I find his stacks of bare canvasses, his pains and his brushes. In addition to the traditional canvasses most artists use I find several blocks of wood, a small piece of corrugated metal, and two old skateboards—minus wheels. His brushes consist of a small assortment of the usual, plus a number of sponges, table knives, a toothbrush, and a few small scrub brushes. I am so deeply and heart-breakingly saddened that I will never see what work of art Colby planned to create with his collection of “stuff.” I know it would have been absolutely awesome.

Tired

I am so tired. Granted, I had a busy week, but it is more than that. It is the tiredness of grief. I want to sleep for a month, or two, or maybe even for a year. This is not depression tiredness, but the exhaustion of my soul. I listen to counselors, to experts, to other parents who have lost a child, or in some cases, have lost children. One thing is common to them all: each believes there is no right or wrong way to grieve. We each have an individual path to follow and we have to do what is right for us.

My problem is that I don't know what that is. Do I give in to the exhaustion and sleep for a week? I have much to do and am already behind. Will I catch up if I am rested? Will the rest even restore my energy or will I forever stagnate in this exhaustion? Is this tiredness the normal tiredness of grief or is there something more going on? If I do rest, will I ever get back on track? Or, will I lose focus entirely and not be able to find the slippery traction of my path?

The thought of finding an answer to these questions is so mind boggling to me that I can't begin to sort it all out. I miss Colby so much. Every time I breathe, every time I turn around, everything I do. He should be here, yet he is not. Many grieving parents say the second year is worse than the first. The shock wears off and the "real" grieving begins. If that is true, how can I possibly put one foot in front of the other and finish this first year, much yet the second, and the third and the fourth? The only thing I know is that I have to. Somehow I have to because this is what my life is now, and I have no other choice than to continue on. Other grieving parents find a way. If they can do it, I can do it, too.

Pity

Since Colby passed I do not attend many public events. This is for many reasons. A big one is that a lot of people moving around, along with several conversations going on at once, is still hard for my brain to process. I am overwhelmed with all the sensory input and become very anxious. This is a good sign that I am still reeling from Colby's passing. I am doing better, but have a long way to go. Someone in one of my support groups said it well in that grieving parents never "get over" or "get past" the death of their child, they just learn how to cope with it. I am still learning.

But another reason I do not attend events is that I do not want to see the pity on people's faces when they are confronted with me. People do not know what to do with me now that I am a grieving parent. People feel they cannot talk about kids or family or holidays or memories or the future because I no longer have any of that and it will upset me, so there is nothing left to talk about. I am, it seems, a great conversation stopper.

I do not want anyone's pity. I do not want to be treated like a fragile individual, even though in many ways that is exactly what I am. If a conversation bothers me, and yes, sometimes some conversations do, I will find something else to do, someone else to talk to. This is my problem, not everyone else's. My feelings are still raw, my emotions are still on a huge roller coaster. These are my issues to work through and pity from others serves no purpose.

Someday I will be able to handle the moving people and the varied conversations. It may not be today or tomorrow or even six months from now. But someday I will. Not treating me with pity will help speed this along.

Caves

When Colby was six and seven we went with his cub scout group to stay overnight at Cumberland Caverns, a large cave system in Middle Tennessee. Each year we went, Colby was the youngest in the group and the route our guide took us on was quite ambitious. We scaled steep rock walls, crawled through long narrow tunnels, and jumped over wide crevasses––and Colby loved every minute of it. Colby kept up with the older boys (the eight and nine year olds) just fine and the experience gave him a life-long interest in caves.

In caving, he and I both learned that it is important to have three sources of light with you at all times. Because, when your light goes out there is a blackness like you have never experienced. It is an inky, thick, overwhelming darkness that seeps into your pores. It is not necessarily a terrifying blackness, but it certainly is a colorless void that I learned to respect.

Grief for a child is like the blackness of the caves. It is ever present and becomes part of you. It is a thick, fluid presence that never goes away. Sometimes it is a little less dark, a little less thick, but always, it is there. I wish I could express in words how profoundly Colby's passing has affected me, how completely the death of any child affects his or her parents, but I have not yet been able to wrap my brain around that. Perhaps I never will.

What I can say, however, is that I hope very much that anyone who has living parents who reads this will be careful with their lives. We humans take chances with our lives every time we step into the street, ride in a car, or take a pill. I want to say, yes, it can happen to you. You can be the one who is in a car accident. You can be the one who is in a house fire, or drown in a pool. I would not wish the pain of a child's death on my worst enemy, so please be careful with your lives. Please be aware of what is going on around you. Please think before you act. Please do not put another mom or dad through the darkness that so many of us grieving parents live with every day.