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.
This day will take more strength than I thought, sweet boy. I pray it doesn’t take more than I have.
Today is Mother’s Day and you aren’t here. Thankfully, your brothers and Grandma are, so we will celebrate.
There is now a split in my Mother’s Day. I will celebrate with two children while grieving one. It is an impossible situation yet somehow, I must persevere.
I am no less a mother.
Sweet boy, one of the most challenging parts of grieving you is learning to hold the both / ands.
Grief and gratitude.
Joy and sorrow.
Hope and despair.
Comfort and suffering.
Today is surviving them all simultaneously. It is smiling for what remains and crying for what is gone. Often at the same time.
I cried harder this morning than I have in a few days. I was able to wait until the house was quiet. I am not sure if that means I am getting stronger or learning to carry grief better. Perhaps it is both.
Over the last ten weeks, I have tried untangling the both / ands of loss. I am beginning to realize it is impossible. So now I sit with them. I accept them. I will, eventually, learn to understand their contradictions and, rather than wrestle with them, relent.
Do you remember the song you loved that went…
Do you like lasagna? Yes I do! Do you like popsicles? Yes I do! Do you like lasagna popsicles? No I don’t!
That is what both / ands are, sweet boy. Two things that don’t go together. Except I don’t have a choice whether or not I like them. It just is.
Mother’s Day is all about celebrating mothers. But to mothers, it is about the children who made us moms.
Thank you, sweet boy, for letting me be your mom for 24 glorious years. I am both destroyed and exceedingly grateful for that time.
The road has taken some damage over the years. So have I. The view, however, was ever the same.
Grandma and Aunt Dolly went to see a friend from church play at the Batesville Market. It isn’t the kind of place we would have taken you. The building is old and not accessible. I had to carry Aunt Dolly’s walker up a few stairs and then help guide her as she climbed.
It felt good to care for someone, even slightly, the way I did for you.
After leaving them settled, I went straight instead of turning around to get home. You loved our drives—especially that stretch of road. We would listen to music and on nights like this we would have rolled down the windows. I can still see you—mouth open smile and eyes squinting—as the wind hit your face. You would shake your head, flap your arms, and bounce with delight.
The road is long and winding with majestic mountain views. There are historic homes, gigantic mansions, and farmland with cows and horses. It is quintessential Virginia.
I sobbed.
Please God, give me something, anything.
Relieve this pain even a little.
Give me peace. Let me know You are here and I am not alone. A sign.
Anything?
He was the best part of me, my whole world, and you took Him. Why? Why would you do that to me?
I am here. Your daughter. Your child is alone and hurt and scared. Won’t you do anything at all to help me?
Please God. Please.
Sometimes He calms the storm. Sometimes He calms the child.
Sometimes He does nothing.
Or so it feels.
Grief has revealed a depth of my soul I never knew existed—where tears and agony are abundant. Or perhaps she found the now empty place where you once were and settled right in.
When God made me stay, my heart became infected with Grief. She invades everything.
At the end of the drive, I dried my tears and ended my lamentation with:
I am holding on to You anyway.
I was surprised Grandma and Aunt Dolly wanted to stay the entire time. It tickled my heart to envision two ladies in their eighties hanging out listening to jazz on a Friday night.
When I left a couple of hours later to pick up them up, I stood at the car and looked up at the beautiful spring sky. This time of year, every part of creation announces the new season—even the stars.
Okay, God. I am asking again for a sign. Would You show me a shooting star? At least let me know I am not alone.
Sweet boy, wouldn’t you know one appeared as soon as I finished asking?
It wasn’t particularly spectacular in brightness or length—just a whisper and had I not been looking at that exact spot in the sky I might have missed it.
The feeling might not last, but it came and that matters.
It is a lifeline I can grab when the abyss comes—and it assuredly does.
I miss you, sweet boy, more than I ever knew a heart could.
At this point, living captive by Grief for eight weeks, I will take promises yet to be.
We took our first family trip without you, sweet boy. Baby had Spring Break so we went to New York City to visit your oldest brother, Emerson. It was so quiet in the car. I kept looking in the rearview mirror, but you weren’t there.
My heart saw you signing “trip” and “time” and “work” (the YORK in NYC sounded to you like “work”). My mind perfectly pictured you dancing with your unique groove of thumbs up, head tilting from side to side as you swayed with the most gigantic, beautiful grin. The signature Wesley move. You loved a good road trip but would often get impatient. For you, the joy was definitely in the destination and not the journey. Sweet Boy, the absence of all that was you filled the now empty space where your wheelchair once sat.
We stopped at a market off I -81 for lunch. At one point I couldn’t find Baby and went into complete panic mode, briskly walking through the entire place and even checking outside. Steve tried to calm me down reminding me Nathan is 6 foot 3 and no one could just take him. My mind is so warped from the loss of you I thought to myself someone with a gun could take him. It made no sense but neither does the world.
I found him coming out of the bathroom and threw my arms around him, crying. The world is so unsafe to me right now. That is what happens when the invisible box in our mind gets checked.
People tend to imagine worst case scenario which never really actually happens. Until it does. The very worst thing imaginable that could ever happen in my life did, sweet boy.
You died.
Once that imaginary box gets checked with permanent ink, there is a seismic shift. In that shift the architecture of all you held as absolute – everything you believed unimaginable – implodes. In the rubble knowing when to be afraid and when not to is lost. Nothing feels safe and there is nowhere to hide.
Nowhere.
In the nightmare that transposed reality, lessons shifted from imaginary and hypothetical. What I held as sacred was taken – cruelly, harshly, and without warning – leaving me empty hearted, broken, and confused. I am unshielded. Who is to say it will not happen again?
I hold to the one truly sacred thing I have that cannot be taken – my faith. That is mine alone to relinquish, and though at times I wrestle, I will not relent.
These firsts are difficult. I put on a brave face so our family can still enjoy the trip. When we got to the hotel, I went to the bathroom and sobbed. My Sweet Boy, I cry a lot in bathrooms these days.
We went out for dinner and my eyes teared up at the sight of Emerson sitting next to Nathan.
I have two boys left.
I felt gratitude and longing. Sorrow and joy. Such discordance is exhausting to my soul. Right now they are equal parts. I suppose they will coexist always but somehow, over time, become imbalanced. Prayerfully, it will not always be striking like a slap in the face but become a gentle tap on the shoulder.
Your absence at every family gathering will be there. I do not want that to change because you, sweet boy, deserve that perpetual place.
I learned to drive in NYC because of you, Sweet Boy. I used to be terrified of it but there are so few cabs and Ubers that can take a wheelchair. Not all subway stations have elevators. The only way you could fully enjoy the city was if I drove us around. You made me so brave. I am trying now to be brave without you, but it is infinitely more difficult.
We did not go to Times Square. Honestly, the main reason we ever went was because it was your favorite part of NYC. It always bewildered me how you, with your sensory processing issues, would sit in Times Square exhilarated soaking in all the chaos had to offer.
This time walking around without pushing you in your chair was unnatural. There were stores and restaurants we were able to go to this time that I hadn’t been to in years. You know, Sweet Boy, how inaccessible New York can be. It was strange to be able to enjoy something because you weren’t here.
What is a person to do with that?
Every time I go to the city I feel compelled to go visit Washington Square Park. Some of my fondest memories of a time when life was not so cruel took place there. Your brothers, Steve, and I sat in the empty fountain in the center. I told Nathan the story of when NYU was so small the entire university’s graduation took place there. The art students all jumped in the water of the then running fountain. Though security guards were placed around, the dean of Tisch walked through quietly saying “fountain” over and over encouraging us to defy authority and jump in. It was a tradition, after all. I showed them the place that used to be a cafe where I sat at the table next to Matthew Broderick. We walked past the movie theater where I spent my first night of college watching old Bugs Bunny movies.
We reminisced about Emerson’s audition at NYU and how he walked out to me standing there with giant cones of cookie dough in each hand to celebrate. It didn’t matter to me when I was standing in the long line to get them if he did well or not. He tried and that was worth a celebration.
In the late afternoon we went to Emerson’s fourth floor walkup in Brooklyn. It was another new memory that would not have been possible until the after. Steve made dinner for all of us. Your brothers sat on the couch and opened Pokemon cards. Baby slept over at Em’s apartment and said it was his favorite part of the trip. I love that out of everything we did in NYC, it was the time he spent with his brother that mattered the most.
I have exceptional young men.
Three of them.
It made my heart so happy they have each other still. Your sign for Emerson was an “E” on your heart. For Nathan it remained “Baby” because that is what I told you when I first brought him home.
“Look, here is our baby.” It stuck and we did nothing to unstick it. For that, I am grateful.
I desperately needed the reprieve from Grief. She was kind today and walked behind me allowing me to enjoy the sun, the memories, and time with your brothers and Steve. She only nudged me a couple times, until I laid in bed. Then she hopped right into bed with me and stole the covers.
