We Have Choices

This has been a dark and lonely walk. So many who travel this road, yet each one travels within themselves. We meet others who understand our pain, yet our pain is unique to us alone. Such a confusing and empty feeling without those we love. It does not matter what our minds tell us, our emotions rule. Our duality of personality keeps us swirling in a whirlpool of lost directions. We don't know which way to go. We have lost our filters that have always told us to temper our words because the normal cannot take brutal honesty. We have gained a touch of PTSD, many phobia's and deep grief. We see an alien world that has taken over what we once knew. We are filled with the darker emotions and very little of the light is left. Not a fair trade-off. How do we climb out of this endless tunnel of sorrow that we have suddenly been blasted into? How do we wrench our minds away from the moment of loss? How do we live again without them?

Our life, as it is now, started at the moment of loss. Everything before that seems like a dream, someone else's life. We retain a small portion of that life, but mostly, we are moving down a path of change. We changed so completely at our new beginning, that little is left of what was. You can feel the pain catch at your chest at the thought of loss, but the real thing does not even come close to the emotions you feel before you know what loss really is. We fight this change everyday, which in turn makes it more difficult on us. Our voices sound the same, our eyes are still the same color, our outward appearance may be more ragged but in general, to all who can see us, we are the same. Looking out from this shell tells a different story. We see us in the mirror, but what we see is far from what others perceive. Maybe we are shocked that we don't look the thousand years that we feel. But we see it in our eyes, we feel it in our bones, we know it in our heart,

I knew a woman once who's five year old son was hit and killed by a car as she lay drunk in her bed. I did not meet her until many years after the loss of her child. She chose to remain in that bottle. At the time, I felt compassion for her loss, but could not understand how she could stay drunk when it was the factor in her loss. Yeah, I understand now. We have choices. That was hers. I mention her because when my son died, she was one of the first ones to come to mind. I saw her twenty years after her loss and shuddered at the thought that this pain would be that horrible in the distant future. We have many people that pass though our little world. A lot of them leave a lesson behind when they are gone from our orbit. We may not realize it for many years, or it might be an immediate learning experience. We have choices and I did not/do not want to be her. She is one of my lessons.

At first, we are unable to make choices. We can't hardly even think of anything beyond those we miss so much. The dishes, if we remember to eat, remain in the sink, the bed unmade, the dust gathers on unseen surfaces. We might get out of our night clothes, eventually, or comb our hair. The desire to do anything is gone. If someone were to ask us what they can do for us, we will most likely just look at them and not answer. How do we know? We can't hardly breath little lone make a decision. It feels like becoming an animal that lives on instinct alone and that instinct is flawed. We want to be by ourselves in our grief but fear being by ourselves. We are so messed up, that people decide we have stepped over the edge. They have no idea that what we need is a shoulder, and understanding person who does not judge but listens for as long as it takes. When we do speak, others find our words harsh or hurtful. They can't know that we lost our filters and do not have the ability to temper what we say.

There is more for us to deal with beside the loss of our loved one. We can't. We can't deal with anything to begin with. Sights, smells, sounds can trigger a crying jag in a nano second. We have no control over anything, especially our selves. When someone would tell me that time would help, I wanted to take that word and shove it back down their throat. Time would take me further from Tim and the last time I saw him. Time was an enemy. I had come to hate time. I also know the truth of this, but it does not make me like it any better. It takes time to learn to live in this life. We have that choice even when we have no desire to choose. The filters slowly come back, even the desire to do something, anything, slowly comes back.

I will never be the same, but I can be someone. I find things that take my mind off of the sorrow. I read, write, paint, photograph, make myself do things. It does not take the pain from my heart, but it helps me deal with that pain. To do nothing is to stand still and let death defeat me. I have said that there is no pain like the pain of child loss. I am sorry because that is not true. For me, there is no pain that comes close. But for the one who is suffering, whether it is a parent, child, sibling etc, their pain is as real and as deep as mine. We all know this sorrow and live this pain. We all have choices as to where we go from here. With love from a 'Forever Mom.'