“But you have another child”

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May 14, 2012

Really doesn’t make Mother’s Day any easier, we sort of pretended it was just another day…sorry Hallmark.

Ryan

Yes…we are blessed with another son, we have another child….who is witty, deep, still remembers to say ”yes ma’am, and “no sir”…we just like staring at him which I am sure wigs him out.  We like  staring at him cause you feel like you can never stuff your heart full enough of his presence, the luxury of being able to reach out and pinch him…literally, which I did yesterday – on his sunburn – cause it proves to me he is alive and next to me.  God bless his patience and good humor with me.

Perhaps people remind us that we have another child because it makes them feel better?…dunno.  I always think of one of my first bosses who loved dachshunds, his theory was that it could die and you could replace it and the kids would never know cause they look the same.   Well our children are  not dachshunds, human beings are irreplaceable,  unique.  It is not like we have forgotten Ryan when we grieve or miss Justin.  I tell you something though, it takes an enormous amount of courage and energy to stay engaged with your surviving child.   When Justin died, 25 years of living with our lives entwined,  emotionally invested in each other and continuing that investment on an adult level was severed.  I believe it to be totally natural to want to self-protect,  to emotionally distance oneself from that unimaginable pain…to not allow it to ever touch you again.  We live with the reality that Ryan could die too,  it is a searing pain to  live in a world where children die ….an entire new way of living must emerge as the psyche sorts and relocates this information.  I thought I was a mama grizzly before Justin died, the bear might be old, but she still has bite.

To not want to die and to want to live are not the same thing and they should not be confused as such.  One can not want to die, but have no desire to live…you exist…you make coffee, feed the cat…you might even get the mail in or pay bills.  You may not actively seek death, but you also are not actively seeking life,  you survive.  To want to live is a conscious decision that has to be made every day, several times a day until it becomes part of your fiber again.  It is terrifying to live again,  it is terrifying to love,  to be vulnerable, numb is much better. To chose to live is to open the door to major swells of anxiety, to learn to reroute the mind not to plan for disaster and heartache.  To chose to live is to examine that which gives life and that which draws life from you and then to put in place those things which bring life.  To chose to live is to learn how to live in a world where children die…you don’t recover, get over, get closure….you recreate, you expand, you navigate,  your world will not look the same as before your child died.

I believe that I had a moment of life on Saturday.  We watched as Ryan slid into the passenger seat of a stock car for laps with a professional driver before he got to drive solo.  I  asked my brother, who made this day possible, “do they know that’s my baby?”…he assured me that they did.  We quickly climbed up to the roof of the media center to watch…and it was thrilling.  Then Ken said “c’mon, suit up and I will pop you in with a professional driver, I promise you it will be fun”…golly fun?….flashbacks to a crushed white Chevy Achieva…the endless pictures in my head of Justin’s car flipping….then making the conscious decision to want to live, to saying “yes”…..and he was right, going fast in a stock car with the bright blue sky, and the wind and the smell of the track was absolute fun, not to be missed.  And to see and hear the sound of smiles and laughter, to not want the day to end,  to relax for a moment…it was good.  I found I was in no hurry to get out of the race car…in fact, I was hoping that if I was quiet they might let me stay, cause for the seconds that it takes to lap the Monster Mile, I felt alive and  I wanted to live.

We got to take a break from our grief on Saturday and it was a great blessing and privilege.  So grateful to a big

Doug, my brother Ken and me, pit road at Dover International Speedway

brother who had the courage to plan,  to encourage, to think of us and build an incredible day.  To family who

drove to  Dover International Speedway  to share the day, to make memories.  To the gracious and wonderful welcoming staff at Monster Racing Excitement  for providing such an out of the ordinary venue, to make memories to last a lifetime, thank you.

Justin, I thought of you every moment…we all did. It is so hard to learn how to live again, to live without you…to want to live.  It won’t happen overnight, but small steps forward….learning that for every good day, there can be three horrid ones…and that’s Ok….recreate, expand, navigate.  We are rebuilding.

 

Ryan and his Uncle Joel

 

Me and Ryan before his solo drive, moms always have to have one last hug.

Ryan and his Uncle Ken

 

 

Ryan, Justin and their Uncle Joel at Dover International Speedway, summer of ...95 or 96..

Ryan

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Categories: Brothers, Family, Justin, Monster Racing Excitement, Ryan.

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A Tale of Two Grandmothers, a different sort of grief.

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May 9, 2012

A different sort of grieving.  And at times an overwhelming grief for a little girl as beautiful as a new rose, who came into our life in a dark moment with almost blinding wonderment and then was snatched away just as quickly. I made the error of writing about our first visit with our granddaughter, Clara, we had not seen her in four years.  I was hesitant to even mention the visit… because, and not to sound pessimistic, good things, things that quite a few take for granted….don’t seem to materialize over here.  Not asking for a pity party, just will know better next time to trust my gut instinct and to not hope for quite so much.   We made ourselves vulnerable and got burned at a time when we didn’t have a lot of resources to expend.  Our hearts already so broken and raw from Justin’s loss, we were ill prepared for more pain….and I am a little more than surprised at our continued naivete in dealing with the child’s mother.

To all out there who mistakenly think grandparents have legal rights…we don’t.  And for all who quickly say but, but…surely your son has rights, yeah…not so much.  He has the right to pay child support and child day care, provide health care and whatever other needs come up…but ask for visitation and instead you receive an invitation to dance with the devil.

This experience has proven to be a great insight into my eldest brother’s life, may God grant him peace and mercy in his death.  He was twice divorced, had three beautiful girls.  Was denied custody after his first divorce because he didn’t have enough furniture, his apartment was sparse.  I remember the only time I ever saw my brother cry was when I was maybe 8 years old, we still lived on the farm and he was in the living room with my mother and he sobbed that he would never see his girls again…and for the most part he was right.  He was working at Westinghouse and going to Johns Hopkins University at the  time.  He had previously been injured in a training accident as a cadet in the Maryland State Police academy and was released, that broke his heart also.   He was no saint, brilliant, a bit of a free spirit and as life’s disappointments piled up, an alcoholic.  We watched him try to drown his broken heart and pain in drink and drugs.  Almost breaking the surface a dozen times, but sinking back into despair.  I cannot imagine the depth of his self-loathing, but I think I can empathize with his pain now….and my mother’s great pain.

She grieved the absence of her granddaughters in her life.  Holidays and birthdays were the worst…she would buy cards and gifts and then be hesitant to send them, would the girls be allowed to have them?….my mother fretted that our family was spoken ill of and she already had fought a hard battle with self-image all her life.  Sometimes she got the cards sent, she kept photos of the girls tucked in her top dresser drawer and in her bible.  Sometimes she didn’t send the cards…and I get that, I have Clara’s Valentine card and Easter card that I did not send.  To the credit of those beautiful girls, Vince’s daughters, they found my mother when they came of age and it gave her  much joy.  I don’t think she ever got over the feeling  of being “not good enough”.  My parents had been denied custody  and the court excoriated the good character of my mother and father.  Pain like that does not go away but burrows deep in your heart.  And yet,  I never heard my mother speak ill of the other family or the mother, in fact she continued to have a tender heart for them.  She always said a child needed to hear the good and see the good of their family, that it was important for how they felt about themselves that they be able to see and hear the fine qualities, for everyone has good.

I have tried to follow my mother’s example, to see the good…regardless of the slander and manipulation, but it is hard, at times almost impossible.  I takes my breath away at how much my life at times mirrors my mother’s for I know the pain she bore and buried, you can see it in her eyes in pictures…so often absent of life and light.

I am thankful that our granddaughter’s mother chose life, for where there is life, there is potential.  And we are extraordinarily proud of our son who at such a young age has never missed a child support payment or left his daughter without excellent health care. He bears a sadness that I cannot even begin to imagine and perhaps one day, his daughter will search for him and find the father that she has missed all these years.

I keep a box of  memories, maybe one day she will find us  and we can share what has been carefully kept in hope.  Mayhaps she can look upon the picture of her grandpa carrying her in his arms and it will help her remember that she is loved like none other will ever be loved.

 

 

 

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Categories: Brothers, Clara, Doug, Family, Mom.

Chicago isn’t doing it…even Alan Parson’s can’t manage it…

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May 6, 2012

I have tried each at obnoxiously high levels.  I have tried Puccini, Stravinsky and chanting monks to no avail.  Nothing disconnects the endless haunting melody that plays in my head nearly every waking moment since Justin’s funeral.  I wake up hearing it, it weaves in my head all day and when I try to sleep it is there, and with it that moment of Justin’s funeral that has become so indelibly stamped in my memory, just moments before we would follow behind his casket and leave the church to walk up the hill to the cemetery.  I remember his funeral so vividly, that dread mixed with disbelief of what you are doing and what you are about to do, those last moments with his body so close, yet untouchable…the sun streaming through the window touching the casket….Doug to my right, Ryan to his father’s right.  Then the both of them standing beside the casket as pall bearers, grateful for the small hand of a dear soul that clasped mine on the walk up the hill.  Still brilliant sunshine…the last minutes with him.  Reaching over to remove roses from his casket spray, watching the funeral directors take a step at the same time, then sensing that they were not needed nor wanted, they stepped back.  One last moment, one last touch of his casket.   Then the service was over and we left him on the top of the hill, near where the forest meets the edge of the cemetery.  Numb, my only thought was to get the church tidied for the 5:30 PM Mass that evening.  God bless Justin’s friends who moved, carried, packed and lent a hand where ever they could to put the church back to rights after the viewing and funeral.  Numb…but with that thread of melody already playing in my head.

And the melody still plays in my head over and over…the melody from the Largo movement of Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”, a song we had chosen and was  sung most exquisitely by two extraordinarily talented and generous friends of ours who had known Justin for many years.  Lori True wrote the lyrics to the particular version that was sung for Justin, but there are other, older lyrics that are  sung at many funerals.

Every child has their own melody in a mother’s heart that combines and harmonizes and creates a symphony that is the soundtrack to her life, each with their own theme that rises and falls… always there.   I cannot hear Justin’s song anymore, it is simply gone….now just this haunting melody that never stops.  I find no comfort in its lyrics, yet find myself singing the opening line all through the day.

I cannot remember the sound of my father’s voice, nor my mother’s….and I know that time will erase the memory of Justin’s voice…..you recall it in your mind, but recoil from the pain when you hit on it…repetition is what keeps that timbre of his voice in active memory.  Without that repetition, his voice will fade…just an essence of his voice will be there…ghosts.  This active letting go of Justin is excruciating, he no longer lives in my present or my future.  This is the reality of the second year,  so hard, so sad.

I miss the song that was uniquely yours my son, it was lilting, complex, brilliant….unfinished.

 

 

 

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Categories: Doug, Grieving, Justin, Ryan.

He always came home in May

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May 4, 2012

He did, Justin always came home in May.  Didn’t matter how far away the boy was, he came home…sometimes by plane, once by train…but he came home.  The last May he was home was May 20th, 2010.  He came home by train, Doug and I picked him up at Union Station.  I remember  like it was yesterday.  We hit traffic and I was so eager to see him.  We found parking, walked through the station, past the police dogs….thousands of people milling about…we were on the second floor and there, looking down, there he was.  Patiently standing with an enormous back pack full of books, no clothes…just books.  Dark curls long and tousled…and my breath caught, I always had to stifle down crying when first laying eyes on him.  We had not seen him since January 2, 2010 and we missed him so.  Justin was  gentle, kind….a kindred spirit.  He was thin and pale, tired…but smiling.

We were into our 14 month of unemployment, we never thought Doug would be out of work for so long and prospects were pretty bleak.  We lived off our retirement savings and were trying to stretch that as thin as possible.  We stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant on the way home from Union Station.  It was somewhat defiant and irresponsible, to eat out when money was so tight…but it was  a tradition for us to do that whenever Justin came home.   Justin didn’t care that things were so simple and sparse…he was happy with just being home.  I don’t believe I have ever known anyone so contented within themselves with such simplicity.  He had a good book, furry cats that draped themselves over him and a decent cup of tea.  We wandered the rose hedge, planted basil, and talked for hours.  He would catch up on sleep, my heart can still see him wandering out in his flannel lounge pants, old college t-shirt.  He would always be accompanied by cats…they would hear his footfall and appear out of no where to share his breakfast, lay in his book….scold him for being gone so long.

He would share about his life in South Dakota, his experiences teaching, the projects he worked on as a research assistant, his thesis for his master’s project.  The cat who would come in to visit him at his apartment and then leave after a short time.   I would love to hear he and Doug talk computers, it was way over my head, but it was a joy to hear them speak the same language.

May, full of memories…his college graduation….how can that be four years ago already?  May….used to be so full of promise.

He stayed a week and then had to return to South Dakota.  We would not see him again until that August, and that would be for the last time.  He died in some godforsaken pond in Minnesota the end of September.

Makes me so sad that we were so stressed about money and losing the house his last two visits home, makes me sad and angry…. he was so concerned for us even though we didn’t talk about it except to say that we were doing fine, that we would be ok.   Angry that we couldn’t  afford to travel out to South Dakota to see him….sad that the last time I got to see my sons together was December of 2009.

May makes me sad….perhaps one day it will not, but for today there is naught but heartache for a son that was ripped from our lives and has left a raggedness that will never heal…but always be angry, red welts.

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Categories: Doug, Justin.

Don’t should on me…

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May 1, 2012

and I will try not to should on myself.

I read that in a book on parental grief..small book,  most excellent book.  The book is titled “Am I Going Crazy?”  For bereaved parents, family members, friends, therapists and grief-related organizations by Diana M. Cimador Roscigno. Diana is a bereaved mom.

Don’t should on me.  We should on each other all the time don’t we?  She should do this, he should do that…they should do that, they would feel better.  Feel better…love that one too….we aren’t sick, grief isn’t a sickness, we don’t have the flu…our child has died, just a little different.

Don’t should on me.  You should stay busy, you shouldn’t be so busy, you should eat more, you should walk more, you guys should get away.

Don’t should on me.  You should smile more, you should get some rest, you should stay active, you should do something fun.

Don’t should on me.

Don’t should on yourself.

Stop the “I should have called him”,  I should have known his travel plans,  I should have known he was traveling so late,  I should have prayed harder for safe travel , I should have known the moment he died,  I should have known he was drowning.

I should have viewed his body, I should have tousled his curls, I should have stroked his cheek.

Stop shoulding on me, I will work on not shoulding on myself….and between us there will be a lot less should in our lives.

 

 

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Categories: Uncategorized.

“But at least you have each other”…and other mythical thoughts….

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April 26, 2012

Let me preface this post with a disclaimer right from the start, I am so very grateful that I have my spouse still alive, the attempt in this post is to simply shine light on preconceived notions of grief as experienced by a couple…held by popular opinion and grieving parents themselves….at first.  I am extraordinarily conscious of the blessing we have in not having one of us in a pine box, my mother was widowed at 52, my father being only 54 when he died.  Both Doug and I have buried our oldest brothers…both of them only 57 years old.   As we approach those milestones in our lives, it gives cause for great reflection in many facets of our lives.

Some quick statistics and urban legends.  The 70 to 90% divorce rate for bereaved parents is an urban legend, it is not that high.  Newer statistics show the average between 12 to 16%, keep in mind as you are crunching numbers that conservatively 50,000 children die a year in the US, that is 6,000 divorces that can be linked directly to the death of a child using the lower percentage.  As many as 1/3 of bereaved couples say they suffer from irreparable damage in their marriage, but do not divorce.  What various studies  show?…90% of all bereaved couples will struggle and experience serious marital difficulty after the death of their child.  I thought that was significant and in a very rudimentary way, proved to us by what we have experienced by listening to others’ stories and in trying to objectively evaluate our own experience.

I was filled with misconceptions about what grieving as a couple would be like, I too thought, “we have each other”…just like the work horses I always think of when I think of Doug and I, harnessed together we would just keep…well, carrying on.  I had the first sledge hammer to that idealistic notion several months ago and it gave me great pause.  The fact is that yes, we as a couple, as parents grieve for Justin…but not the same, not together.  We are seen as a bereaved couple, but in reality we are individuals with our own grief, Doug cannot share my grief, I cannot share his.  You grieve the child, but you also grieve the relationship you had with that child.  I did not have Doug’s relationship with Justin, he did not have mine.  The relationships were unique, personal….I cannot be to Doug what Justin was to him, nor can Doug be to me what Justin was to me.  Great parts of us are missing individually, the entire dynamic of our marriage changed …we are individually not the same people.  So we grieve the broken hearts of our spouse, we grieve for the pain they feel…but cannot share.  We grieve the disappointment, the resentment, the anger of not being able to lean on each other…both are hemorrhaging life and energy.   So in profound woundedness, you try not to leech what precious little is left in each other, to respect the individual journey.  We will not journey the same path, Justin’s death will not effect each the same and the challenge is to not end up at such a totally different place, the place where all you have is the pain of who you were, and where you don’t recognize the other anymore.  The place where collectively you don’t believe or hope for good things anymore, that you believe all will be snatched away.

Grief by its very nature is lonely and isolating, the second year of parental grief is often called the “lonely” year.  It has been stated before and it holds true even more so for bereaved parents, our mate cannot bear the weight of all our needs or of all our grief. They are not mind readers, super human in strength, or any more experienced in dealing with their grief than we are, life is just as strange for them.  I read the term “reinvestment of energy” quite a lot and the cautionary note that comes with that to evaluate closely where we reinvest our energy.  To me it is sort of like a fiscal evaluation, where do I invest my energy?…evaluate the percentages invested and the return on investment….look carefully and closely at the cost of that investment.  We chose where and with whom we invest our energy, we must look for ways to save our energy and scour our interior for those investments that are absorbing too much energy at this time.  That scouring takes quiet and time, courage and commitment.  I believe it will take the setting aside of old aspirations and dreams and willing the heart to spin new ones.

There is a stone garden border that I painstakingly built a handful of summers ago, but it has never really “worked”.  I hear the stones calling to me to move them, they don’t like where they are either…they want to be part of a different garden, join with other stones.   Perhaps it is time to move the stones.

 

Written in loving memory of what would have been my mom and dad’s 65th wedding anniversary, they were married for 28 years before my father died.

Mr. and Mrs. Vincent D. Dyer, Sr., April 26, 1947

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories: Doug, Grieving, Justin.

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