The Prison Of Grief

Posted Jan 7, 2010 10:59am
Well Adam, it's here; The year you will never walk the earth, 2010. I think back Adam, as I do now, (day in and day out) to the year 2006 when all this crazy, gut wrenching, sorrow started. Then, I felt sheer panic and white cold fear filling every pore of my body. It didn't look good at that time as echoes of… "I'm sorry but your son has cancer" I still hear that Dr's voice today clear in my mind and it reverberates around and around in my head as if I was standing next to Big Ben chiming midnight. The only thing BIG back then was the task ahead to fight like we had never fought before. You were not always "on board" with that Adam, we fought and I have regrets now about so many things… "Adam you must walk" "Adam you must eat" "Adam you must LIVE" I talked to God in those days, in fact we chatted lots of times over weak hospital tea, two old friends catching up with the days events. “Well God he had an infection today, thanks for letting the meds work and warding that one off” “Hey God he’s doing good the x-rays showed no tumor in his stomach guess that pain is all that peanut butter he’s eating now” “Oh God you are such a joker to send me a fiancé’ as completely useless as you did” Hmm! Isn’t it funny how some of your best friendships one year can be with people you never will see again in your life? Come on, think about it who were you friends with in say 2008 that you have not seen since? Well, God has been like that, he and I are not friends anymore, in fact I would go so far as to say we never will be again, not now at least, too much has happened and come between us, it’s a lost cause and since I am learning to live in the moment (insert big laugh here) I can’t think too far ahead of the what will “be” in my future as that future now looks bleak and sad and lonely. I live within the prison of my mind the guards are grief and despair and yet the warden is hope! Whenever, there is a “but” there is hope. “I love him “but” he is not right for me” there is hope for a new relationship. I am broke “but” I have a job interview there is hope for a new job and with it comes a better financial situation. I do not believe in God “but” I have left a door cracked, "hope" that God is real and will soon see fit to comfort me, maybe he already is and I just don‘t know it. On my occasional visits to the warden I sit quietly and allow the few brief moments of “hope” to comfort me. Then, as I must, I return to the prison of my mind where at least you live with me and that allows me, although barely, to keep breathing. Today I am breathing, although I do not know how or why, I am still “alive” and from the lips of other grieving mothers and fathers I have heard similar thoughts “How does the world keep turning when my child is dead?” “Why does the world keep turning?” “How do I redefine my life when my precious child is no longer in it on a daily, weekly basis”? These questions haunt those of us whose children are gone, taken by all kinds of circumstances; Accidents, illness, murder, drug overdose, suicide, it matters not how they are taken to us the members of an elite club whose membership is so high that it claims sometimes our lives as payment, it only condenses down into the fact the cold, hard fact, that they are gone. We are told by well meaning friends that life does indeed go on…We are told that we have, in some cases, other children that need us and we must be available for. Often we are questioned on things as mundane as “have you eaten today?” “are you seeing a counselor?” “Do you think you are depressed?” this one used to make me so angry but now I smile inwardly because of course I am depressed I am in a deep dark hole of despair of depression why would I not be? My child is dead! a word that I find hard even to type let alone be formulated in my mind and come to terms with. My grief, my despair is mine alone. Although I can glean some sense of comfort from other parents it lasts only for a few seconds for always I must return to the prison of my mind where I live day in and day out, hour by hour mourning you, missing you, aching for you. Sometimes, I think I am going insane, the thoughts become jumbled, you as an infant, your first day of school, that scar you earned by tumbling over the handlebars of your bike when that car in the neighborhood bumped you ..I stared at that scar as you lay in your casket, the memories flooding back, the fear I felt that day when your sister just a small girl herself rushing through the door…”mum, mum Adam has been hit by a car” these thoughts twirl and swirl around and always the pain, the searing pain that I live with. I will not and can never set my eyes upon you again in this lifetime. I can never hold you or you me and your cheeky little grin with the dimples will never be the cause of a random smile. I can never tease you, hold my grandbaby, embrace your wife, for you never had these experiences. “Why?” becomes a profound word in my vocabulary my soul screams it to the heavens and my old friend remains silent for not even he has an answer for me, no one does…..The tide of my grief hits the shore breaking the remains of my life into shifting sand…Ashes to ashes, dust to dust not just your body Adam but every fiber of my being is reduced to nothing more than sand and a solid foundation can never be built on sand….I must continue to find a way to go on.. I know this son… I must look into the crevices of everything I am or ever will be to find the strength to keep breathing day in and day out and the prospect exhausts me, the reality too much to accept but what choice does any parent have? Of course, no one can offer an answer just a hand of sorrow and a look of understanding and yet often times I must fight for even those as people tire of my sorrow anxious not to be reminded that life is fragile and this too could happen at any time to them, this unthinkable burden of sorrow could be theirs to bare one day they too at anytime can join the club. I wish not even on the darkest enemy of the earth membership….
And so it goes……..