TO MY BELOVED JUSTIN ON HIS SEVENTH MEMORIAL DATE

Dearest Justin,  
As of today, I am seven years away from you. And that feels excruciatingly far. I wish the last time I hugged you was a week ago. And that it had been only four days since I heard your voice on the phone. And I wish I was expecting your call in the next few days and waiting for your visit accompanying me to the 4th of July fireworks you know I love so much. And knowing you, I would understand that you believed watching your aging, but still crazy Mom getting so excited about fireworks was a perfect way to spend some time with me. This awareness and quiet caring are among the things I miss most about you.

 
I recently came across this picture in your cousin’s photo album. You were about 14 when it was taken; already grown into your young man look, but retaining vestiges of my baby boy’s gentleness. I see kindness in your face, coupled with a calm determination so characteristic of you. You have a subtle, barely discernible smile in your eyes, and an overall expression that is thoughtful and serious at the same time it is open to the revelry around you. And even through your Urkel-like glasses you are beautiful. I love this image of you, and the remembrance of your spirit it evokes. I long for the day when looking at it brings only warmth, joy and a sense of being present with you; the day when anguished, heart stopping loss is not associated with this image at all. But I fear no matter how long I live, I’m unlikely to get there. Actually, time feels like the enemy in this regard, since the distance from you as years pass create their own trajectory of grief and pain. But cherishing and remembering you are more important than this pain my love. It is seven years ago today. I will miss you always. And you will be present with me forever.

Eternally, Your Mother

6/30/13 

Things They Left Us

The quote below is derived from science literature about a recent discovery on fetal cell duration in the mother’s body. This amazing scientific fact inspired the poem that follows entitled, “Things They Left Us” 

 

‘Scientists have recently revealed that a mother's bloodstream contains not only her own cells, but a small number of her child's as well, and some may remain in her internal organs decades after the baby is born. Scientists discovered cells from fetal boys and girls have been found in mothers "four to five decades following the last pregnancy." That fetus may have grown into a middle aged pharmacist, and still his cells are inside his mother.’

 Things They Left Us

We live among our dead;

We mothers of lost children;

Carry their remnant DNA inside us;

In uterine lining, heart and brain;

Haunting our very cells.

Viscerally present but not visible;

Unavailable to touch but forever felt.

For postpartum eternity we carry them.

They will never leave us. Yet they are gone.

This is another way we hold them that is beyond control.

It cannot be willed away through determination or purpose.

It is empirical reality. It is physical fact, this flesh of my flesh.

You left yourself with me before permanently leaving my sight.

How could I not grieve you forever?

 Forever Your Mother

4/19/13

Images of Justin

Response To Another Mother Of A Beloved Lost Child

The following post is a response to another mother who lost her son to suicide recently (April of 2012). Her name is Jill, and her son, Charlie, was just a few months over 12 years old when he took his life. Jill and I are members of an on-line support group called POS (Parents of Suicide) whose participants share feelings and experiences about their loss. The sentiments she expressed resonated so much with me. In the following excerpt from her post, Jill describes her existence in the aftermath of Charlie's death. 

"The obliteration of all of your dreams at once. The knowledge that any path you take from here will
never be an acceptable change in direction. Nothing we do from here will make my life what it should have been. I have handled a lot of abrupt turns in the course of my life. This isn't a turn. Not one thing that happens after the death of Charlie will ever be greater than the pain of his loss. The rest of my days
are to be survived, endured. The most I hope for is to minimize the torture and pain. ........  Damn, it's a long march to my grave from here."

My response:

Hi Jill,
I seldom post, but your comments here caught my attention, and they totally resonate with me.
June 30, 2013 will mark seven years since I saw my son Justin, or heard his voice (except on family videos). I'm not one to tell you how this pain will become more gentle in the future. Everyone has their own journey. All I can tell you is, while my pain has changed, it's still very much there. It's no longer the "hair on fire" jump out of my skin kind of pain that only a loss of consciousness can diminish. Now, it's more like a slow burn. It's like an old injury from a disfiguring, nearly mortal wound. And it aches chronically. Sometimes I can successfully ignore the pain. Other times it breaks through with a vengeance, only easing up after I take to the bed for a time out. Sometimes the time outs are aided by  generic xanyx medication. Other times, simple exhaustion from brief, intense crying jags do the trick. These episodes happen regularly. During the periods when the chronic pain is more muted, I can bask in the warmth of a POS retreat; I can enjoy a good movie or talking with friends; I can get excited about pictures my daughter emails me of my grandson, or look forward to holding him in my lap during our next planned visit to NY. And while the muted pain is always there, lurking beneath current events, it doesn't stop me from feeling the joy of that particular moment.

I suspect this negotiated truce with full-on pain is as good as it's gonna get though. I believe it will always threaten. Sometimes it will take charge. But I'll continue to surf through it until it retreats to its underground lair. And it'll wait there for me until the next time. I'm a good bit older than you Jill, but I must agree, the rest of my life (however long or short it is) feels like it's gonna be a long, hard slog. In the meantime, the best I can hope for are as many moments as possible where the joy surfaces, and the pain is muted. I continue to hope such moments are worth it, or that I'll move into some increased level of awareness that make me certain it is. As a person who continues to listen, read, and strives to understand, I hold on to the possibility that in this lifetime I can evolve to a place unimaginable to me now. And in that space, I'll find peace, and a deep, true wisdom. I think I'd be able to really feel Justin if I could get to that space; feel him in a way that made him fully present for me. And if that could happen, holding on will have been totally worth it. We shall see.

Sincerely,
Ann, Forever Justin's Mom
9/9/81 thru 6/30/06
http://justin-woodly.gonetoosoon.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svGniIEdbZ8

Layoffs As Small Stuff

This is the oddest thing. Why is it that getting the sudden news of being laid off from my job effective November 30th (a discomforting but comparatively small thing) ramps up the pain for my lost child to intolerable levels. The logic in this isn't clear to me, but there it is. Since finding out of my impending termination on November 5th , I have wept and longed for you with a gut wrenching intensity that feels like it's driving me over the edge. And while the edge has been in plain sight since I discovered you hanging that July 1^st morning in 2006, it feels perilously close right now. It’s gone beyond the fabled ideation stage to the entertainment of an actual plan. I suspect this would make no more sense to my non-existent blog followers than it does to me.

And then I remembered my childhood friend Tam, who launched into the most extreme period of grief when her family dog "Lady" died about a year and a half after losing her father. She lapsed into fits of sobbing at the elderly dog’s death to a degree that seemed disproportionate and strange to her family. She took to her bed. But somehow, I intuitively understood what she was going through. The death of the family pet brought back all the trauma of previous losses she'd experienced, especially the recent, shattering loss of her Dad. And the cumulative impact of these traumas caused every tragic thing to resurface in a glaring, terrifying crescendo. Losing Lady reminded her how damn near unbearable her Father's permanent absence was …….. would always be. I remember standing with Tam by the grave side during her Dad's internment ceremony. Two fifteen year old girls, freezing our butts off in miniskirts and jackets on that cold, upstate New York, fall day. I held her hand as silent tears ran down her cheeks. I thought that's what a best friend was supposed to do, and my being there did seem to comfort her more than the presence of her Mom and three older siblings. I didn't know that a little over a year later, I'd watch helplessly as she heaved muffled sobs into her pillow after Lady was “put to sleep”. And even though I felt like I understood, I didn’t know how to comfort her then.

I suppose being involuntarily let go from ones' job of 16 years is somewhat comparable to the loss Tam experienced with her pet, although to be honest, I suspect Tam was fonder of her dog than I've ever been of this job. Yet the slow burning fear and trepidation I feel at having to launch a high energy, high stakes job search at the age of 59 is staggering. I feel way too exhausted to take this on, and harbor resentment at having to engage the world on so many levels right now. I seriously doubt my ability to get up to the required performance level to do this successfully. The truth is, all the taxing stuff of day to day living without you has been wearing me thin for more than six years now. The impending challenge of trying to find a job makes clear how little heart I have left for this fight; this meaningless grind of minute to minute, second to second activity against the backdrop of heart break that ebbs and flows, but never goes away. Burying your child will do this to you in a way that nothing else can. And I realize how much I don't want to do this anymore.

So I visit the many pics of you on my facebook page during these final days in my work cubical when I should be searching job web sites, and emptying out my desk. My tears come in silent, wet sheets as I listen on my ear phones to Lizz Wright’s song “Trouble”, her anthem about not being afraid to “let go”. And I think of you baby boy. I look at you …. all that you were,  and all you didn’t live to become, and try to keep the characteristic chest heaves of grief from being audible or visible to my soon to be ex co-workers. I'm pretty sure they’re not seeing any of this, and I would guess this oversight is purposeful. I'm like Casper to them now, barely visible in an eerie sort of way; an unpleasant, reminder of what could have happened to them, but didn’t, as I continue my ghostly presence in their space. And the amazing and somewhat irritating thing is, if they observed my back’s heaving cries during quick, voyeuristic turns past my cubical; if they noticed what looked like a tear during a brief glimpse of my profile, they'd think this unrelenting sadness was over a lost job. No different from those who thought all Tam's inconsolable grief was for her lost dog.

I don't think I'm going to miss these shallow, clueless people. But to be fair, why should they be expected to have a damn clue about any of this. And why should I hold this profound ignorance against them. Somewhere Justin, in the vast expanse of whatever’s next, I know you’re getting this baby. 

Forever, Your Mother

On Your 31st Birthday

Dearest Justin,
Among the most treasured images I'll recall is the memory of you laughing. Eyes shut tight, holding in hilarity as if letting it out at once might cause you to explode. Seeing you happy like this was a joy. Today marks your 31st birthday, and I haven't seen you through the last seven of these. This elapse of time feels like distance, and I don't want you to get that far away from me. While it helps to hold onto the image of your laughter, moving forward remains a painful choice. I love you baby boy. Be in bliss. And be sure to visit my dreams.

Forever, Your Mother.

Another Rough Night

I began this morning in mourning. Got very little sleep last night. In between not sleeping, I had two very bazar and rarely remembered dreams. Both of them centering around things I'd lost. You weren't in either of them. 

Don't know why it hits so much harder than others sometimes. There doesn't seem to be a consistent catalyst. But I know this. It’s been more than five years now since you left us; since you left me. Objectively speaking, I should be at the point where I can think of you lovingly, with soft, warm, sepia edges. Like the slightly blurred, forgiving images taken at aging movie star photo shoots. Remembering all the joyous, pretty things without heart stabbing grief. I should have fixed the highly edited memorial to your memory solidly in my brain by now. But that's not happening. When I think of you, I think of lost beauty, boundless potential unrealized, an image of you hanging, all the life of you I'll never see, and it invariably makes me sad. It always hurts; sometimes more than others. And the occasional reduction in pain is the only relief to expect it seems. These times occur when you're shoved to the back of my mind by current, relatively trivial experiences or events. A meaningless job that, more than anything, is testament to my professional failure; the silly spectator sport of political gamesmanship watched on the evening news from my bed; previously recorded episodes of House; These are my distractions. But in the larger landscape of life, how much can any of this matter?

You are gone from my sight forever, and there really is nothing else matching that fact, good, bad or indifferent. My intermittent distractions from this knowing are apparently as good as it's going to get for me from now on. And I have to say, this is getting really old, and it’s extremely exhausting. If I’m tired of me, I can only imagine how boring this must be for everyone I deal with. Don't know how much longer I can do this. But one thing I'm pretty sure of is, I don't think I want to.

Forever,
Your Mother