Normalizing Boo Boos

By Sherrie Cassel

There’s a feeling I get when I hear a song I find to be beautiful. The first note can have me sobbing in seconds. I’ve learned to tame the meltdowns. Deep grief is a part of my horrible/wonderful life. I’m the mother of a child who died from the mental illness of addiction. I often wish I had been more attuned to my son’s internal pain. Maybe I could have helped to heal it. Momma making it all better. Only memories of kissing boo boos are as painful as the wounds that will never heal. Oh, sure, there are spots that have scarred over, and there are some in various stages of healing, and there are some that will ever be tender – because the loss is something I must live with every second of every day – even as life moves forward – no matter how hard I slam on the brakes.

Why?

I still ask this question, eight years and eight months later, soon it will be ten years, and maybe, if I live to see the day, I will commemorate his twentieth angelversary. Maybe. Rikki’s been on my heart – painfully – and I haven’t been here for a long time. I’m routinely in a good space – despite the fact that every second of my life is an adjustment to Rikki’s absence in my life.

There’s a giant black hole in my universe – and as I travel through the grief process, I learn as much as I can from my son’s absence, and I share my healing with others; I give them hope. I receive messages from many readers who kindly tell me I’ve helped them. I’ve seen my fellow grievers soar away into amazing lives; and I’ve seen grievers bury themselves in their grief. Everyone handles grief with the resources we each have; some of us have more than others.

I made a conscious decision – after three-and-a-half years of hardcore grief, to pick myself up by the bootstraps and start walking to the next destination, the next milestone in my life. We all say our kids would want us to be happy, and I believe this is true. I can still remember (thankfully) how we’d laugh together, and how when he made me laugh until I snorted, it would bring the laughter out in him – such joy. I miss those times.

Certainly, I will never forget the hell he put us through. I nearly checked myself into a mental institution. I knew he was going to die – and I was already grieving before he actually did die. He wanted me to be happy while he was alive too. I wanted him to be happy and as much as I tried to shape him into a happy young man, he wasn’t. Why else would he choose heroin and alcohol to numb the pain from all the places it affected his heart and soul? He would hate that I blame myself and that I take on one-hundred percent of the responsibility. He would say, “Mom, let it go. We got through it. Forgive yourself; I forgive you.” I forgive him too. I’m not angry with him for choosing drugs; it actually makes sense after all he endured in his lifetime, his short thirty-two years.

Eight years and eight months later, I finally get it.

“With great knowledge comes great sorrow.”  Ecclesiastes 1:18

In the early days of grief, I researched the hell out of grief, its effects on the mind, body, and soul. I pored through books that would make me think, of other people’s woes, of victory stories from grievers who have taken their losses and transformed them into gems of wisdom, and then taken that wisdom and shared it with others with the only intent: to heal.

I’m certainly not saying a person can heal another. What I am saying is one spark can illuminate an entire room as we each light each other’s waning torches. I had a barely perceptible spark those first nearly four years of adjusting to the grief process. I bucked like a wild bronco when life started leaving me behind and had the audacity to move forward. No. I wanted to remember forever that I’d lost a son. I wanted everyone to know he was my only child. I wanted EVERYONE to know. I couldn’t go out for months because I knew I would not be able to handle having someone ask me how my son was doing. I knew I’d lose it – right in the middle of the grocery store, in church, in class, at parties, and other social events where discussion of my son’s death was inappropriate.

I’ve learned to breathe through tough memories. I’ve learned to white knuckle some memories and navigate them like a kayak in a raging river, being tossed about. After I read a slew of books that addressed grief, the good, the bad, and the ugly, I cried until my face was beet red and my eyes puffy and swollen. I cried during the books. I cried after reading the books. I just felt so understood by these people who’ve experienced great losses that took the wind out of their sails, knocked the wind out of them, leveled them.

Yes, initially, I created my blogs to purge. My heart needed to shout to the world, “My son is DEAD!” And so, I picked a public forum. I had no idea it would draw so many readers. Thank you for your messages of affirmation. In the wake of my son’s death – and the manner in which he died does matter, my heart has been broken so wide that the whole world has fallen in, as Mother Teresa suggests we do, allow ourselves to be open to the whole world. My purpose became clear only because I wanted to stop hurting. As you know, the intensity reaches critical mass before it begins to submit to our will, and until you are in control of the intensity, it’s difficult to find peace and purpose.

We may have no control over our triggers, but we do have the ability to control the intensity of our pain. We’ve been doing it since prehistoric [wo]man. I’ve been controlling the intensity since August 6th, my son’s forty first birthday. I’m in an internship. I have a husband who needs me to be present. I have friends I need to be with. I have amazing grandchildren who need me to be here for them. I have traffic to navigate. I have the compulsion, yes, compulsion to educate myself – all the way to a doctorate. Rikki’s left his imprint on my life, my baby, my Boo, my beautiful and tortured son. He loved learning. He knew a lot about a great many things; he was a great conversationalist. I told him often that he would make a great professor.

But that didn’t happen.

Angelversaries and birthdays are difficult. My son’s birthday came and went and I punctuated the day with great big, loud sobs. I was fine the next day, a bit tired. Emotional pain can lead you all the way to exhaustion.

I guess I just want everyone to know that it hurts like a son of a gun – and when the memories arise, bittersweetness will follow, a knee-jerk reaction. I feel it when I find myself enjoying life and something reminds me – again and again that Rikki is no longer here to share beautiful sunsets with me or what is going on in his head and in his heart. I miss our talks. I miss his brilliance and his amazing vocabulary. Damn it! I just miss him so much. August was his month.

How have I gotten through? I hear my son laughing and inviting me to join him. I laugh – then I cry … and then I get up and live my life to its fullest. You heard of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott — ? Tonight, it was a ramble; I hope my thoughts have touched you enough to cause you to go grab a slice of joy –.

It’s okay to be happy; it really is.