Five Years Today
Five years ago, today, my life changed forever with the death of my son. I didn’t know, until the next day, that I had lived my last “normal” day. But I had.
In the five years since Alex left us, I’ve experienced everything from shock to frozen disbelief to the gut-wrenching sorrow of having to accept the unbelievable truth: our handsome, strong, funny, stubborn, hard-working, kind-hearted, amazing son chose to end his life.
At first, as I tried to find my way through grief and shock, there was a constant conversation in my head, sometimes with Alex, sometimes with my thoughts racing round in a never-ending circle of why, what, how, all the questions that are un-answerable, because the one with the answers is gone. But even though I knew I wouldn’t find answers, the questions didn’t stop. The conversations became familiar, well-worn paths in my thoughts that I had to work through, again and again.
Sometimes I needed to tell Alex what we were doing to mark his life, how we were remembering him, how we missed him, how much we love him. Sometimes I needed to think through, again, all I knew or wondered about why he made this choice. Sometimes I needed to ask him what we missed, what we could have done, how we could have helped him be resilient. Sometimes I just needed to say his name, to keep him in the present with me even if the conversation was one-sided.
I’ve read a million words about grief, written long pieces, some I’ve shared, some are private. I’ve talked out loud and paced and thought and circled through the same familiar landscapes of sadness, missing, memories, and future loss. Grief has become a companion. Not a friend, I don’t know that I could ever say that. And certainly not welcome either, but ever-present, the layer under everything I do. Sometimes that layer is uppermost. But most of the time it’s shielded, protected behind what passes for normal these days.
The PTSD from grief and loss is real. I am instantly transported to those first moments of knowledge, first days of coping, with news of similar losses…young people who can’t go on, and so often they’re the ones who seem invincible. Somehow that trait, coupled with the sudden stark truth that they were vulnerable to forces no one else saw or understood, is literally breath-taking, and heartbreaking.
Once you’ve experienced your world shattering, there’s an instant kinship with others who come into the club. That’s a term often used when parents speak about the experience of child loss. “It’s a club no one wants to join, but once you’re in, you can never leave.” It’s a cliché, and it’s true. They say it’s a journey, and that’s also true…we use so many words to try to explain. But ultimately, no words are sufficient.
Five years in, and the circuitous conversations have quieted. They still bubble up, but not as often. I’ve learned that Alex really does live in my heart. I love to say his name, in a natural way, not always associated sadness and loss, but as part of a funny story or sweet memory. I’ve worked to be able to talk about him without tears (although that happens too, sometimes when I least expect it) to focus on the joys of his life more than the sorrow of losing him. The loss is always with me, but so is the joy that we had him, and I refuse to let grief steal that. It has taken enough already.
I use photos of Alex as my phone’s wallpaper, and I like to change them out, sometimes using one of his last images, and sometimes an older one that reminds me of his early years. It’s another way he’s with me, always, and it comforts me to see him any time I pick up my phone.
This is one of the truths I’ve learned too, that humans grieve differently, and that there is no one way, or right way, to live with grief. First, when you’re swimming through the swells of fresh loss, you just do what you have to, you do what you can, and what you must.
Slowly, very slowly, I began to think about what I wanted to do with my grief, how I wanted to be a marker in this life for Alex, as well as myself. I can’t represent him the way he would have done it, I’m not nearly the amazing person he was. But I / we chose some ways to honor him, and remember him, that I think he would be proud of, and that’s soothing to me. I like to think that some part of the rest of my life will be a reflection of who he was.
I imagine what comes next, after this life. Beyond any theology, I have an internal faith that we do go on, and that I’ll see him again. There was a time when any reunion in the next life would have been about the questions and trying to understand. Now I realize It will be enough to hug, if souls can hug, and to just see him.
Until then, I’m holding him in my heart, and waiting. And I’m living, fully living, with the family and friends who are in this life with me. I think that’s part of what we do for the ones we lose: we go on. We find a way.
