Holding Grief and Gratitude After Losing a Child
Grief is a thief. She takes from every corner, yet sometimes she leaves quiet, involuntary gifts to families like ours.
Sweet boy, while I am waiting for rebuilding to begin, if it ever does, I wonder who I will become. I will always be your mom and still am to your brothers. And yet it is different now for all three of you.
One of the confusing truths from the loss of you I am left to untangle is that I will be able to be more present for your brothers now. The gift arrived in a way I never would have asked for, sweet boy. Accepting it with gratitude disconnects somewhere between my heart and my mind.
In an empty room of my heart, Grief has left a box in repulsive wrapping. Inside are gifts made possible only in the after.
Sweet boy, our family was necessarily built around you. Your complex special and medical needs required intensive attention. Ignoring or delaying them was never an option. It would have been life threatening to you.
Taking care of you will always be my highest honor, sweet boy, but I missed events for your brothers. I couldn’t take them to see movies very often. Sometimes parent teacher conferences weren’t possible. Performances were missed. Rarely were we able to sit down at a restaurant. We weren’t a typical family.
We still aren’t.
Grief moved in.
Your brothers sacrificed in big ways and small for you, sweet boy. All of us did to give you the best life possible. When the sadness gets too much, I hold to that thought—we did give you the best life possible. You returned the favor a thousand-fold, sweet boy.
I both detest Grief’s gifts, yet I am grateful.
How does a mother untangle that?
Do you remember how we would often go to Target with Nathan? It was one of your absolute favorite outings. On one of those trips, I was unfolding the wheelchair ramp to get you out and saw a family in the car next to us get out and go.
How odd, I thought.
I still had to put your socks on and gather your shoes which you took off the minute we got into the car. I needed to make sure your iPad and sippy cup attached to the chair. You always threw them when you were done. We learned to dodge flying iPads, but it was a serious safety hazard in public.
It wasn’t envy I felt for the family but recognition of a culture vastly different from ours. For us to have their simplicity would have meant we didn’t have you.
And now we don’t.
There are no extra steps to take when we go out. It doesn’t matter if a location is accessible. We can hop out of the car and walk in the store except I don’t want to go. I do not want to be anywhere you are not.
But I wasn’t given that choice.
What I wouldn’t give to be encumbered because it was all in the care of you. It was never heavy. It was our life and you were my world.
Nathan asked if someday we would get to take an airplane. Perhaps we will.
The future and the maps are hidden.
I have been praying for God to open a door or at the very least crack a window. This enclosed room is suffocating. It is dark with only an occasional break from constant shadows. The air is stifling.
Sweet boy, just maybe, He is working on building a house while I am waiting for an open door.
It begins with a gift.
As an act of faith, I pick it up and slowly, gingerly begin to unravel the bow.
Perhaps, in doing so, I will untangle the gift from the means by which it came and try to hold it with gratitude.
