It's a kind of backwards Groucho Marx joke (I wouldn't be a member of any club that would have me). No, I write about the opposite. None of us who are members of this club would ever choose to be a member. In fact, we all would avoid it like the plague.
What club is this?
The club of parents whose children have died.
Children who are now angels. On the flipside. In heaven. Should you believe such things. (Or, just dead, if you don't believe those things.)
The blog is called Wednesday's Child. It's from the nursery rhyme:
Monday's child is full of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.......
My child, my son, happened to be born on a Wednesday. Yet even if he had been born on a different day, he would still be a Wednesday Child because I was filled me with woe the day that he died. Anyone who has lost a child (or grandchild or sibling) knows that woe.
Wow. I said it. The terrible words that no parent ever wants to speak. My child died.
I started this blog on his birthday. I needed to do something to honor him and the sacred place he has in my heart and psyche. I'm not one to organize a foundation, or a golf tournament, or to set up a scholarship for aspiring music students, or any of the million other worthwhile endeavors that other parents have done to deal with their grief and honor their children. I admire and applaud them for doing such wonderful work. I'm just not that type. I needed something else to do with my grief.
My son was quick witted and so good with words, loved to voice his opinion, and had a wicked MySpace page (yes, he left us before Facebook became "the" site.) Loved The Daily Show with Jon Steward. Wicked wit. We used to have great discussions about politics, the world, life. I haven't watched the Daily Show since he left. It's been hard to have those discussions with anyone else. Finally, it dawned on me: write your thoughts. Honor his spirit. So, a blog seems just right, and it occupies my thoughts on his birthday, and pushes away my thought of "what would he be doing now if only......"
Those of us in "the club no one wants to be a member of" are very clever when it comes to our departed children's birthdays. We find interesting ways to deal with the pain. We can ignore the date (excruciatingly difficult to do); wear it like a sandwich board sign ("hey! Look here! This is my kid's birthday!); grieve in silence; make a big production out of something so that we suppress the pain and make everyone think we are "handling this so well."
Ha! All efforts to run from reality are either useless, or, like favorite opiod drugs, buy us a little time and keep us a little sedated so that the full effect -- the enormity -- of this loss that never goes away can be dealt with. If we can get through yet another birthday, we think we have accomplished a lot.
And in fact, it is an accomplishment. Just to get through. Just to keep going.
I started this blog because I want to share my journey on this dark road that started the day my son departed this existence. I have found so many parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins who never come to a place where they can consciously handle the enormous loss. The missing person is compartmentalized, ignored, and most hurtful of all, never spoken of again. Or, for those of us who DARE speak the name, we are met with awkward silence, and the rapid changing of the subject. The death of our child happens all over when we cannot even speak his name or recount a memory. Grieving in silence becomes a pretty good choice considering the other options. Or jumping into a "big project" whose busyness distracts. I came to the realization that we each have to do it however it works for us.
I want to mention an organization called Compassionate Friends. It is for the families who have lost children. I admire the organization, as it offers many levels of support: meetings, newsletters, online chats, Facebook pages. I even get a card each year from the local chapter honoring my son's birthday and memorial day. As much as it hurts to get them, I am glad they arrive in my mailbox. Someone has remembered my son and the two dates that outwardly define his time in this world. No one else sends cards.
But as good as Compassionate Friends is, for me I saw a lot of breadth, but not a lot of depth. They touch so many grieving families, but I did not see any way to express more than a few words or short paragraphs about grieving. Yet, for me, I need to say more.
I have learned since my son's passing not only my own ocean of grief that almost caused me to drown, but I have also learned about the enormous emotions that engulf all families of children who died. The grief and emotions do not go away. They transform. They can be managed, sort of. But the depth of the feelings remains. And very few of us seem willing to share those feelings or discuss the depth of them.
So here I am. I want to start that conversation, even if it's just a conversation with myself. My plan is to post on what it means to be a bereaved parent; on moments when the loss of my son hits me like a 2x4 against the head; on moments when I can smile in remembering, or cry over seeing a young man walking that for a fleeting moment looked like my son.
I have spent a few years now evolving into the role of someone who can have the conversation...which means I can write this without the keyboard being drenched in tears. Up until recently, that would not have been possible. Tears and sadness was all I could express. Of course I still grieve, and I will grieve this loss so long as I live, but now I can put the grief, and the process, and the observations, into print.
My son was Wednesday's Child. I will share the woe, as well as the love, and the journey to live despite the indescribable grief that come with the loss of that beautiful being that I gave birth to and nurtured. I hope that by being able to share, others will have a better understanding of this grief without end, and of the hole in my heart that is too big and too deep to ever heal.
To quote George Harrison (and yes, I am a total Beatles fan): "Life goes on within you and without you."
My life goes on, but sadly it goes on without my baby boy.
This blog is dedicated to my son who left us way too soon. But is always loved. Then, now, and on the flip side.
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