Patience to Endure

Category: Disability

  • It Goes On

    It Goes On

    When I was a child, my father had a darkroom in our basement. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the bitter chemicals and see the reddish light barely illuminating the room. I did not know exactly what he was doing in there, taking paper from one chemical into another and then hanging it up. I just knew he loved it and I loved him, so sitting in the dark was perfectly fine with me.

    I don’t know why I remember the two quotes he had hanging by thumbtacks on his wall. I was only eight years old. Yet one that has been attributed to Robert Frost is at the forefront of my mind today.

    “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

    Today marks six months and one day since my sweet Wesley left. Grief makes a stranger of time. Six months, six minutes, six years. All of those are befitting of how it feels some days as I sit here in the after.

    Yet somehow, life has continued to go on. Now when I open my eyes in the morning, I am grateful my first thought is no longer, “I don’t want to be in a world he is not.”

    Acceptance.

    I am living in a world where he is not.

    Six months ago, it seemed impossible, but joy is creeping back in. I have a cheesy wall hanging that reads, “Today, I choose joy.” Up until six months ago, I believed I had that power. Child loss will render one incapable of anything other than enduring a living nightmare. It will steal a mother’s very will to live.

    Day in and day out I hung on. I clung to a barely perceivable faith. I held on with what little strength there was left of me.

    The only thing in my power was not what I could do; it was what I couldn’t do. I could not give up.

    I am resigned to the knowledge that for the rest of my life, not a day will pass that I do not feel that piercing, overwhelming sense of loss. I will miss my sweet boy as assuredly as the sun will rise. It is just how it is now.

    But the spaces in between have grown. And sprinkled in there are perfect little specks of joy, laughter, and, dare I say, life again.

    Life goes on.

    Whether we are ready...
    Whether we are willing...
    Whether we are able...

    It does go on.

    There are moments in grief, glimpses and impulses of belief that perhaps as life goes on, I might be moving forward with it. Not boldly or victoriously but quietly hopeful.

    Perhaps life’s grandest victories are not brought with triumphant banners but with the silent resignation to not give up just one more day.

  • Mental Gymnastics

    Mental Gymnastics

    On the drive home I told mom, “I guess this is my life now.”

    As a swift summer winds down, we traveled to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina for a few days. We walked along the beach as the sun gracefully whispered “your turn” to a grateful moon. I frolicked in the ocean with my teenage son, Nathan, and for a little while we were both children again diving into the waves and laughing as they tossed us back to shore. A dinner at Amos Mosquitos left us in awe of the culinary genius at a restaurant where every dish was superb and every bite savored. We visited the Pine Knolls Aquarium, delighting at the otters, jellyfish, and sharks. At night we lay in our hotel beds watching movies and eating Dairy Queen Blizzards.

    The trip had an equal balance of excitement and relaxation. It was a beautiful way to bid adieu to summer.

    And yet Wesley’s absence was with me. It tapped me on the shoulder in the aquarium, reminding me how he signed “fish” and loved frogs. It smacked me with a wave, realizing he should have been sitting in his wheelchair at the ocean’s edge, signing “waves” and laughing as the water tickled his toes.

    The mental gymnastics required to create new memories after child loss take a soul strength I am still acquiring.

    How does one create meaningful new memories when a beloved child is no longer here? How long will every new memory have a sigh at the end?  How often will joy-filled moments be tainted by Grief’s hand?

    I suppose always.

    I am eagerly compliant in my attempt to learn mental gymnastics in order to honor my children who remain, my husband who need not lose me as well, my mother who still has years to go, and Wesley who lived abundantly.

    A friend once advised me to “live in a way that honors him.” So, I endure learning mental gymnastics and aching spiritual muscles. The need for such a skill was only ever entertained during the imagining of my worst nightmare from ICU rooms in the quiet of chaotic nights. Then, our last ICU room ended with me awakening to the very nightmare I desperately begged God to allow to pass over me.

    I do not know why He said no. I do know He is still good.

    I must forge a new skill of finding joy even while my heart is still so very obliterated. It honors my sweet boy to smile, laugh, and create new memories in spite of all I have lost. His life mattered and matters still.

    So, I twist in unnatural ways. I leap over hurdles. I swing hoping to catch the bar I just let go of.

    I bend but I do not break.

    Gratitude and grief can and must coexist. Bitter and sweet balance equally now but I hold to hope that someday the bitter will weigh less than the sweet. I do not fool myself to believe it will ever disappear.

    Grief simply will not allow it.

  • The Morning Sun

    The Morning Sun

    When my beloved son passed away four months ago, I knew I would not survive if I failed to find gratitude. My drowning soul knew it was my lifeline.

    The small things were suddenly no longer overlooked. Yet the enormity of loss left me wondering how these tiny, fleeting moments of gratitude might soothe a heart hollowed by grief.

    But I tried. Each morning, I took my coffee, sat on the couch, and waited expectantly for the sun to enter our living room.

    When a caregiver loses their loved one it disrupts life on every level. Our daily routines, our identity, and the enormity of grief are all heaped upon our already exhausted shoulders.

    Finding one good thing, one ritual, one point of gratitude may not seem like much when there is nothing but a seemingly infinite emptiness.

    It takes effort, but it matters. Four months later the sun entering the living room and spilling across my plants has accumulated enough tiny moments of joy that I can breathe, even if just a little, easier.

    What began as an attempt to find the smallest speck of joy will never fill the space my child occupied. But it has helped me to create a new routine and to discover a beauty I had taken for granted. The shadows coexist with the sunlight. They move in tandem, ensuring the plant eventually receives the nourishment it needs without burning the leaves.

    For both the sun and the darkness are temporary. Yet the plant remains.

    Some days light will pour generously through the window, and on others it is hidden behind the clouds. Whether or not it illuminates the room, the sun rises faithfully every morning. Life goes on. As cruel and as benevolent as the truth can seem, somehow, so must I.

    In time, even mourning learns the shape of morning.

  • When The Road is No More

    When The Road is No More

    WordPress reminded me of a blog I posted eight years ago. I wrote the piece below not knowing that I would discover what happens when the second road ends.

    For twenty-four years we drove on our road and were grateful. We knew the alternative would have required the impossible of us and now it has. If life with Wesley was a bumpier road, life without him is a free fall nothingness. It is the surreal, chaotic road of deep drops, roads randomly ending, bridges blown apart, and no way to navigate. It is the stuff of nightmares.

    I am grateful that I always knew the honor of the road we traveled and savored every single mile. It was never a burden or inconvenient. There was inexplicable beauty even though the shadow of a catastrophic event always lingered. It taught us to savor the moment even while living with the reality each one could be the last. And eventually one was.

    I will always remember it with love because we were there together. The road has ended yet the love remains. Even death dare to take something so sacred.

    Two Roads