A mother's life journey following the loss of her son to suicide. It includes her poetry and other writings, daily musings, observations and experiences.
I am making two major trips in the coming four months. One is for my daughter, Deva, who is expecting her first child (my first grand child) in May, and one is for my son, Justin, who we lost to suicide in June of 2006. The trip for my daughter is to be there in Chicago when she gives birth, and support her and her hubby in the first few weeks home with the baby. The trip for my son is to attend a conference for suicide survivors in Boston taking place at the end of February. It is a forum to meet other survivors and keep the person who Justin was alive and vital. While I'm making these trips for my children, if I'm honest I must acknowledge they are really for me. The purpose and mission for both these journeys helps me maintain a connection to my children that I need. Maintaining these connections keeps me going and makes my life matter. Maintaining these connections keeps me sane.
And if I will not be attending my son's wedding, or rushing to be there when his first child is born, then at least I can do this. It's more than a simple remembrance, it's making a pilgrimage to honor him and mark the central importance he has, and will always have in my life. Part of the need to do this may be because his loss is so recent. It's been less than four years since he left us. But even if the unimaginable happens, and I live to be very old, I sense I will always have this need to give Justin my attention. In the same way Deva will always be my daughter, Justin will always be my son. That will be the case for as long as I live. In some ways this pilgrimage is an indefinite journey.
