Anniversary of Child Loss

November.....Oh how much I hate you. November is suppose to be the start of the happiest time on the calender. Thanksgiving followed by Christmas. For my family, it is the month we lost Brian in a car accident. It’s the month that changed all of our lives forever.

But here it is again, like a visitor who will not leave...November 2017....

As I sit here at work writing this I hear the church bells ring across the street as I do every morning, but they sound different today. Today, they ring with Hope...Today, they ring with tears in my eyes. Today, I hear them louder than ever.

I have to remind myself that I have made it through the worse days so far. I made it to November 2017 when in November 2014 all I wanted was to die.

On November 7th it will be three years since that car accident left me and my family without Brian and yet, we have all survived. Broken and bruised. Shattered hearts and swollen eyes. Forever changed from the mother, grandparents, stepfather & stepsister we all were before November 7, 2014. But we are here. We are all still standing. We are all still breathing. We are all reminded of Brian each day. We miss him just as much today as we did the day he left us.

One of my favorite quotes, as I have many, has become "When people ask how do you do it, I reply I did not have a choice”

The years have been filled with so many emotions. Some emotions that I did not know I could even feel.

Year 1 - Complete fog, daily tears, thoughts of suicide, fear, denial of what has happened, trying to figure out how to fix something that cannot be fixed, just plain survival.

Year 2 - This was worse than year one. I was profoundly aware that Brian was not coming home. That he was gone. That he wasn’t just away at college or at his grandparents house visiting. That he would not be walking in the house and I would hear “Hey mom”. The fog had been lifted and grief took over. It would be the year where I would learn to accept the deep pain AND accept joy again. It was the year I learned to laugh. A true genuine happy laugh. It would be the year that I would accept that each day, at some point during the day, I would cry. I learned that me and mascara would never be friends again. It would be the year that I would realize my life would always be "before and after". It would be the year where I would learn to trust the journey, even though I would never understand it. It was the year I learned how to continue to be a mom to a child I could not see anymore. It was the year I learned that I would never be the same as I was before I lost Brian and accepting that it was okay that I wasn’t. It was the year where I allowed myself to take the love for Brian and use it to help other parents, like me.

Here I am, the start of Year 3 - I do not know what it will bring. However, what I do know is that I am ready for whatever it may be and that no matter how many years pass, I will always #DOITFORBRIAN