Missing you

Grieving to the tenth power

I am having a hard time with the “other” overwhelming things we have to deal with as grieving parents besides our own loss and pain.  People act like I have some sort of disease that they are going to catch if they get too close.  If they put too much thought into it, it may happen to them.  Their own fears come out and take over.  So, they choose to stay away.  When Logan first died, I heard that this may happen but I am really feeling it now.  Right after he died I heard many people say let’s get together for lunch or dinner and hang out.  Let’s just say, I can count on my fingers how many people really meant that.  Four months out, everyone’s moving on with their lives, except for us.  Thoughts of our son consume our days.  I want to talk about him like every other parent does but it makes people feel uncomfortable because my child is dead.  I don’t feel like I can relate to regular people anymore only to the ones I know really “get” it.  I need to attend a training class on how to socialize with the human species again before I become a hermit.

Maybe they think that I am going to counseling and that should help fix me!  Once I am fixed, then maybe we can be closer again?   Little do they know that there is no way to be fixed.   Counseling just helps me get to the next day, helps me deal with the unimaginable comments, helps me understand that this is final and he’s not ever coming back, helps me respond to the question everyone asks in greeting, “How are you today”?  You know, that little question that people never want to hear the truth.  That little question that people want you to lie about, especially, if you just lost your child.  Would they like me to respond truthfully and say, “Well I am devastated.   I have been crying all day about my dead son and looking at his pictures taken before the mortuary picked him up, wishing I held him or kissed him one more time”.  Does anyone who asks, “How are you today” really want to hear that, um……. NO!  That’s how I want to answer though because he is mostly all I want to think and talk about, at least that way I know he will never be forgotten (my biggest fear).  I find myself getting extremely tense now when that question is asked.  How do I ever get back to where I was when that question didn’t make my hair stand up on the back of my neck?  I am not sure.  Do I have to keep lying to make the “questioner” happy since that’s what they want right?”

I feel like I am living outside of this world now.  I am an outsider looking in.  I find I have to prepare myself before I am around certain people and situations in hopes that they will go smoothly.  I feel uncomfortable.  I don’t even know what to talk about.  I know they don’t want to hear all about my dead son and I’m not really interested in all of the small talk but I’m thinking I should act interested.  If I don’t put on a happy face, no one is going to want to be around me.  I mean, there is only so much crying and sadness people can take, I get it.  This grief creates wedges in relationships.  This is so not what I wanted.  Another thing to grieve, lost relationships.

I remember people would tell me that I will NEVER be the same person again.  THAT made the tears flow even more.  This is taking “change” to a whole new level.  I missed my old self.  Who wouldn’t want to be their “old self” in this situation?  Now I have to grieve something else?!  My “old self” is gone forever too?!  I want to go back to getting excited about the holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, trips, the smell of coffee, yummy cookies, rainy days, ……my future.  A rewind button sounds great right about now.  It seems unfair to me that it’s been so long since I’ve had a good, long, hard laugh.  Life used to be so full of humor.  I want to experience laughing until I pee my pants (sorry).  Does that ever come back?  Will I ever get to experience that much joy in life again without feeling guilty?

It almost makes me laugh (out loud) when I hear people complaining about anything and everything.  Those meaningless petty complaints that you hear at a restaurant because someone wanted more ice in their soda, or at a store because the line is too long, or a bratty teenager complaining about a certain piece of clothing they want and their parents won’t buy it for them, etc.  It seems so ridiculous to me now.  I don’t even care if I am in a long line.  Most of the time I am day dreaming about my little Logan anyways so what difference does it make if I am in a long line, in traffic, or in my house thinking about him?  Not much, either way that’s what I spend most of my time doing.  I could care less if I am stuck in a traffic jam, it will eventually clear, the line will get shorter, more ice won't make it taste any different, and material things don’t mean squat.