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.

Progress

I often wonder if I am making any progress in my grief. I wake up every morning shell shocked anew that my son is no longer here. The emptiness washes over me in waves. It still hurts. Badly. Sometimes I cannot breathe. Sometimes all I can do is cry. It has been more than eight months. How can I possibly get through the rest of my life like this?

A counselor suggests I not look at progress on a day-to-day level, but bi-annually. Am I doing better than I was six months ago? I think about that for a while. Here's what I come up with:

1. I am able to better care for myself now than six months ago. I eat and sleep more regularly. I remember to shower. I have gotten my hair cut (once).

2. The sick feeling, the knot, in the middle of my stomach is still there, but it is less intense. I do not feel 24/7 that I am going to vomit.

3. I can sometimes (but not always) tolerate being in a group of people without feeling completely disoriented and overwhelmed.

4. I still cry every day, but I cry less hard and less often than I did six months ago. And, I am sometimes able to talk about Colby without crying.

5. I have fewer meltdowns. Rather than several times a day, I now have them several times a week.

6. I am more ready now to let go of some of Colby's "stuff" than I was a few months ago.

7. My future alone in the world still terrifies me, but I am more able to focus and function on specific day-to-day activities, and less on my scary, unknown future.

I realize that while grief is often circular, rather than linear, I am making progress. I am not nearly where I want to be. It might turn out that I will never be where I want to be, but compared to six months ago I am making positive progress. If I continue in this direction, life six months from now has the possibility to be (somewhat) better than it is today.

I have not yet met or spoken to a grieving parent who has not had to learn to live with a "new normal." Everyone grieves differently and each of us has to find our way along this path ourselves. Even husbands and wives walk different paths here. I do not know if a parent who has lost a child ever comes to the end of this path, if this journey is ever over until we. too, pass on. But I can now see what while my journey here on Earth is forever changed, that I will have to endure more then enjoy for some time to come, that I will survive this––at least for as long as God planned for me to.

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.