“So, what are you doing to keep busy?”

The above query needs to be put on the “what not to say to grieving parents” list, somewhere near the top.  At least it is at the top of my “what irks me most” list.  True, most everything irks me these days, but on a scale of 1 to 10, this is a “10.”  But, as the question is frequently asked, I shall answer as best I can of what I, we, are doing to “keep busy.”

The first year is filled with numbness and paperwork, lots of paperwork, lots of natural anesthetic that keeps you tracking along.  Shock keeps you functioning, some might even call you “high functioning.”  But then comes the moment, for me I can name the date and the time, something dies in you and you cannot capture that essence of hope or life, that dim spark that had remained gets snuffed out. You wait, thinking that it is temporary, and try as you might, nothing comes back.  You go from feeling like perhaps you could take on a project, enjoy the company of others…to “why bother?”…and it can happen in a split second.  For me it was a month before the first anniversary of Justin’s death.  For me it was a deep betrayal of those who professed care for me and perhaps because I was so “high-functioning” forgot that I was fighting an unseen battle that left me weary.  And now I am angry I suppose, I fought so hard the first year and have little energy remaining for the second year.  Angry, wary and defensive, and no skill set to deal with that toxic mix.

I have struggled to name what mid-way through the second year feels like and then I heard a veteran call it “monotonous.”  I admit, I had to sit with that for a bit and then yes, there it was, after “fresh grief” comes the monotony.  The dictionary describes the word as “tiresomely uniform, lacking in variety, one note.” You are beyond sick of feeling this grief and yet there is no way out.  You are occupied and exhausted…all the time, the two blend in a seamless note. We can still feel the initial weight of grief like Justin just died, and at the same time we cannot remember ever feeling differently, no memory of joy or happiness, no recollection of the past, of who I once was…before smelling the dank water in Justin’s wallet, before reading the coroner’s report detailing every injury Justin sustained, those parents, that mother  does not exist anymore.

So you try different things, searching to find what brings peace and purpose, what quiets the soul, what breaks the monotony of grief. The vision that keeps coming to my mind when I speak of monotony is a large, dark vulture who lives in my house now. I wake up and it is there waiting to climb onto my shoulder, it is with dull resignation  I wake, its eyes are unblinking and staring, it is heavy and its talons sharp as it settles in for the day.  This vulture is so real, death is on its fetid breath and it cannot be shooed away, he overlooks all your activity and at night, settles close to your bed.

To move oneself from one place of grief to another, to survive this time of monotony takes a tremendous amount of energy, of quiet…to find out what works, to learn what will dislodge the vulture…will he suddenly leave one day, or does he grow smaller, lighter?…will I wake one morning and not have those unblinking eyes staring back?  I don’t know, but what I keep hearing is that I must be patient with myself.  Trust that with time and patience we will learn to live in an environment where Justin is missing.

We are still dealing with some paperwork, perhaps even another round of taxes on the “estate of Justin Jackson”….I mean a couple of thousand in a retirement fund is pretty important for the government to track down, oh and the company that manages the retirement fund makes you open an account with them before they will release the funds to the beneficiary. Yes, more paperwork as they pretty much have you cornered, can’t close the estate until you open the account, can’t file a final tax return until you close the new account that you just opened so that you can get to your dead son’s money. It beats the life out of you…just some of things that keeps us “busy.”  And such life giving pursuits they are, so invigorating…so nurturing…yeah, not so much.

Please don’t ask grieving parents what they are doing to keep busy, please don’t give them a litany of the dangers of not “keeping busy”, whatever that might be…please don’t try and define what they should try, what they should do, what might make them feel better…unless you have walked that path.

Trust that we are at the work that we need to be doing, interior work that can only be accomplished in silence and solitude. Work that cannot be measured and defined, work that takes many different forms. Work that makes it hard for us to engage in conversation about trivial matters, work that begs for thought and compassion.  There is a root structure that needs to be re-established, the new growth won’t be seen for a long time, that is part of the trust, that this monotony of grief will give way to a new life.