I read Even the Monsters a couple of years ago and found it very healing.
From the author:
Why am I alive? What is the meaning of life? How can I live well in a broken world?
Have you ever pondered the meaning behind life’s twists and turns? Yearned for fulfillment beyond the mundane? Felt a hunger within that is never satisfied? Something More offers a refreshing take on practical living, blending personal anecdotes with the timeless wisdom of Ecclesiastes.
Something More is not a book about getting into heaven—it’s about navigating the here and now with resilience and grace. It weaves memoir with the ancient book of Ecclesiastes to explore the answers to humanity’s most profound questions. Powerful and personal, it takes on life’s deepest concerns with humor, depth, vulnerability, and a refreshingly modern relatability. Something More offers joy amidst life’s uncertainties.
Drawing from decades of triumphs and trials and enriched by the wisdom of scholars and storytellers, with a special nod to C.S. Lewis, Something More offers a roadmap to fulfillment that transcends clichés.
Whether seeking solace in a sea of uncertainty or craving a deeper understanding of life’s purpose, Something More promises to illuminate your path.
I’m taking a class this semester in seminary that is so difficult, I spent all weekend trying to understand the material so I could complete an assignment. I bucked and I cried. I cursed and sometimes I abandoned hope. I think it was Einstein who said that if you can’t explain something to someone else then you don’t understand the concept(s). I get it. My point is that I’m finally able to just pour myself into a task, a relationship, an issue and focus completely on it. Most of the time I soldier on with this backpack of sorrow; it’s always there. I miss my son. I had him for thirty-two years; that’s a long time to love someone; that’s a lot of life lived together – come hell or high water.
I worked hard on my assignment and I’m not sure what the results will yield, but I did my best, and I was able to focus and channel that sorrow into breathing life into something wonderful. I love discussions about consciousness – and now with fMRI, PetScans, etc., we can map the areas of the brain that are activated when we feel different emotions or sensations or auditorily – human touch. Fascinating.
I was just dancing in our living room, and I caught myself in the mirror having a good time. When exactly did I reach a point when I could dance again? I remember the day was hazy and the weeds in our front yard needed pulling in the worst way. I put some Blues on and I got to it – with a lump in my throat and a deep howl in my heart. I finished the job and then went into the house and lost it.
How many months, exactly, did it take for all that pesky growth, one season, two? I don’t know, but I had a rude awakening. How many seasons have I missed? This year was the first year I’ve had an in-person class. I entered seminary during the pandemic. This year I began an internship, am hopping with things to do, buzzing around like a busy bee. I’m not sure I like it yet. I carry my son with me always; he’s always in my thoughts. But I’m able to juggle multiple thoughts – even as I hold on to the memory of my son.
I cried for the rest of the day.
I cried and cried, and I ached so badly that it felt physical. I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror, pinched, red face, swollen eyelids, smeared makeup. I’d been aching for about three and a half years. I know some of you have an understanding of what it’s like to grieve, a son, a daughter, a spouse, a friend, a fur baby. We each experience the sacred and horrible space in which we grieve.
My husband says I didn’t have meltdowns for as long as I think I did. I don’t know either, but I know I dropped out of my bachelor’s program and didn’t pick it up again for three years. I stared at the grieving woman in the mirror, and I surveyed the past three and a half years – and I doubled over in pain – and I stopped crying, not for good, but finally I was able to control when my tears came and when the time for them was inappropriate.
I’m grieving – forever and a day – but I’m also living fully. I pace myself, and I have a couple of meltdowns a year now, and I never know what’s going to trigger them, or if I have the time to allow for them. I told my son when I was dancing this morning, “Boo, I thought I’d never dance again, or laugh, or enjoy myself, or have the energy to create a life – even if I have to do it without you.”
Then I had that old familiar ache, and I pushed it away, temporarily; I had too much to do.
The last meltdown I had was after a day I had booked myself solid, my son’s birthday. I functioned well and no one was the wiser. I felt compelled to tell three people what day it was, and they were very supportive. After the day, I drove two hours to get home, and I kept my shit together all the way home. I tried to just listen to my seventies station and not think about what was going on forty-one years ago, on the day my son was born.
My sweet husband had written a tribute for my son and posted it on Facebook…then the dam burst, and I wept in his arms. So many years I had with my son, now so many more without. We learn to dance our erratic dances in fits and starts – happy then sad then happy then sad. I pray for the in between days when there is nothing really dramatic going on inside me. My grief journey has been hell. But as the years fly by, I’m hopeful for myself and for my relationships. I’m present now.
The debate between science and religion has been going on for millennia, and as I’ve said, I’m really struggling with Alfred North Whitehead, but I’m doing it. I’m wrestling with it like Jacob and his God – demanding a blessing. I’m now demanding that of life. After Rikki died, I felt so defeated. I lost. I lost my son. I could barely manage through the day without hours long meltdowns, until I cried myself to sleep from sheer exhaustion. Who knew someone could physically hurt themselves crying?
I miss my son, but life insists on its continuation. And I insist on mine. I don’t know how I do it. My “faith” has been rattled by both the loss of my son and by seminary. I’m trying to find my footing – again. I’ve had to move forward – even on those days when it really, really hurts, birthdays, angelversaries, the way the sun casts shadows on the hills. One never knows.
I always say the fast track to healing is to help someone else. I’m also seeing that another way to heal is to not neglect your intellectual journey. Fill your brain with beneficial information on grief, or science, or religion, or whatever peaks your interest. I’m not suggesting that doing so will take your mind off your loved one; or it might. But at the very least, it will give you something besides your grief to focus on.
From the bottom of my heart, this has worked for me; maybe it will for you too. Whatever it takes to reach the level of healing where you can launch back into life is what must be done. God it hurts to lose someone; it just really does. I don’t know what the normal time for grief is. Mine took a bit longer than some others. Some people had the benefit of therapy before they began their experience with grief and so their time in the process may not have been as long as mine was. I believe I had complicated grief; the acuteness lasted for nearly four years. Don’t compare yourself to others’ ability to emerge from the dark pits of early grief. We’re each different, on different grief cycles, at different places in our grief, and with different emotional strengths and challenges.
One day, maybe you’ll be dancing or weeping – and you’ll catch a glimpse of yourself in your or someone else’s eyes – and the next step you’ll take is a choice; it was for me.
And spring comes again — every year; it surely does.
Sometimes the day starts with one giant heaping of WTF?. As some readers are aware, I’ve been on a news fast for nearly one year. I mean, I’m not a “vegan” news consumer, but neither am I an aficionado. The news, while important, especially during an American election year, when the stakes are so high, and the advertisements and rhetoric are once again so caustic, I’ve chosen intermittently to take a back seat. I got caught up during the last big election, and I disavowed the curse of vitriol against my fellow [wo]man – regardless of their political/religious leanings.
Who is on his/her way to the White House is of great import, nationally and internationally. It just is, but the election will yield one or the other and whosever voice is the loudest will declare victory, or…we will lick our wounds – . I allowed myself to get beyond dramatic, ridiculously so, and I’ll not behave as badly this time, even though the next month and some change are crucial. I’ll do what I can, and I’ll cast my vote, and I’ll hope my side has the louder voice of the two.
But for now, I’m loving the people I absolutely do not get. They are decent Americans who love their country, and yet…how in the hell do we arrive at our politics? Which brings me to why I’m writing this post. Politics (and religion) aside, each side shouts its position and attacks its opponent with crude and brutal characterizations of the “other.” And as I’ve told my professor and director of my internship many times, my peace is too important to allow hurtful darts either from me or from someone else to, as my adorable friend, Kathleen says, “harsh my mellow.”
I’m taking a class in Science and Religion from a Process Perspective. When I say it’s difficult, I mean it’s DIFFICULT. I’m grappling with the material because it’s beautiful and elegant and illustrates just how many lenses there are through which to view reality, and how many languages are being perpetually created in an attempt to articulate to another our own perspective or a perspective in collaboration with others.
I’m learning to see the movement in human consciousness from Aristotle to current day movements, both in terms of science and religion; there’s that dualism again. Anyhow, see? This stuff is trippy. I know I should be more concerned about what’s happening in my country; and, I believe there is a healthy balance between caring and catastrophism. I believe our consciousness is ever evolving, and I believe there are some people whose journey of survival keeps them down, socioeconomically, and so, spiritually. I remember my own journey, and, indeed, it continues today. I remember being so green in college. I had hated high school, and now, there I was, at twenty-four, fresh out of an unsatisfying marriage. I knew I could do better, and so I enrolled in a community college in southern California.
There was political unrest, and I was working, and taking classes, and I was learning about Andres Serrano’s photograph, “Piss Christ” – and the controversy, and the multiple interpretations, and one day, Rodney King is being beaten in Los Angeles, and there’s rioting in the street, and the campus closes early, and I’m bummed because I was enthralled with knowledge — but I was becoming AWARE that my tiny world and my tiny perspectives were not all there were.
Life calls us to awaken from our slumber, even in poverty, and maybe perhaps, especially in those lessons we chisel into a necessary tool for our box of resources, prosocial coping and living skills. My reality at the time was certainly one of survival. I was a single mother, without financial or emotional support from my son’s biological parent. I was having gaps in my worldview filled, and I was paring away erroneous and hurtful paradigms and psychological schemas. Life was a whir of ideas, and I was getting them!
Knowledge changed, and indeed, continues to transform my consciousness, and so, it is transforming my life. I strive for peace; it’s an absolute must for me and for my husband. Certainly, there are things that rock our world from time to time, and certainly, with the loss of my son, I’ve had a few tempests to navigate, but in between – calm and catastrophe – I live my life – in a paradise we call home, in the safety of my academic life, in the knowledge that while I’m here I can try to see the world through the kaleidoscopic lenses of as many disciplines as I can comprehend. Face it, physics and I understand each other less than I and my loved ones on the opposite side of the political fence do.
There’s a verse in the Christian Bible, oh no, don’t worry, I’m not preachy, but this verse, from my interpretation says so much about reality and how many ways, at least seven billion, there are to experience it and measure it. Romans 12:3 says something to the effect of we each are given a measure of faith, and not to be arrogant, but to be grateful for the measure of faith which has been assigned (gifted) by God, or the G_d of your understanding.
Faith in the Aramaic means to put one’s complete confidence in something. The example the dictionary uses is putting complete confidence in someone who has borrowed money from you, that he will pay you back. A transaction.
Having a measure of faith is like having a pattern in the kaleidoscope, one view of reality. I admit, this class trips me up and it trips me out.
There’s an old song called, “Satisfied Mind” –. Many artists have covered it, but I like Lucinda Williams’ version. I’ll leave you with the last two verses of the song (appropriately credited) — . Another way to view the world. Once I’m finished with my formal academic journey, we want to start a commune…well, it’s a dream.
“No money can buy back Your youth when you’re old Or a friend when you’re lonely Or a heart that’s grown cold And the world’s richest man Is a pauper at times Compared to the man With a satisfied mind.
When my life is over And my time has run out My friends and my loved ones I’ll leave there’s no doubt But there’s one thing for certain When it comes my time I’ll leave this old world With a satisfied mind I’ll leave this old world With a satisfied mind.”
Per usual, I have an assignment to do, and two more creeping up on me, a presentation, a paper, therapy notes to keep up on, and yanking back my peace from all the places that demand my attention, yet … here I am, playing on social media, listening to music, with the man I love across the hall, a grandson who I adore, and a slice of peace before I hit the books. But first I have to fuck around — for self-care — and then business as usual.
I miss my son; I always will. There are some days when I book myself solid because the pain is overwhelming, the longing, the missing, the loss, the awareness of the monumental loss I’ve incurred. On Rikki’s birthday this year, I met with clients, led a group, spent four hours in traffic, and then drove home and had a meltdown. I managed to get through 3:15 p.m., the time he was born, just like I get through 5:55 p.m., the time he died. Funny how numbers matter, for more than just equations that unravel the mysteries of the universe.
“Chuck me in the shallow waters before I get too deep.”
I have different relationships with my son, posthumously, just like I did when he was alive, and we shared a life together. Today my relationship is mature. I accept the loss. I’ve normalized the pain. I’ve learned to navigate grief in a delicate dance of joy and pain. I wish I were a ballerina so I could dance my pain, so I could show you just how much it hurts to have lost a child. Instead, I dance in language. I make my words come so alive that you feel it too, no matter how much it scares you; you feel it.
That’s what artists do; they bring us to the brink …
Today is a day of reason, not emotionality. I won’t listen to any of my son’s favorite songs today – why would I? Today I can manage the loss and proceed in my life full speed ahead, and I carry my son lightly. His spirit’s fingers are gently cradling my always tender heart, and I move forward, again and again, each step painstaking, and there is respite, but there will never be resolution. He’s gone, you see. He’s no longer here for me to hug, hear his laugh, hear his voice, but my love is infinite, and because it is, in a way, he’s always with me. I read that the connection between a biological mother and her baby is eternal, at a placental level, and that there are traces of placenta in both the mother and her baby for the lifespan. I feel it. I felt it on his birthday in August; the birth story was very present on this day. I know the same connection occurs when a child is adopted and is held for the first time by the beaming parents.
What is it about death that transforms reality into idealization of a person who has passed; it’s almost like sending them off to heaven with a delusion of their angelhood. That is how it happens. As Rikki’s momma, I have collected every wound I ever caused him, and sadly, I collect all the wounds that anyone else had ever caused for him. I let them go, a little at a time. No one is perfect, certainly not I. My beautiful and tortured son was not perfect. He was perfect for me, and had he had his druthers, he could have chosen far better than I to be his mother. I’d been a wreck for much of my life. I’m grateful to be on this side of 51/50 now.
I cannot suggest the urgency of counseling enough, especially before you enter a long-term relationship where progeny is a consideration. Nip the family dysfunction in the bud. Refuse to buy into the family mythology – that everything is fine, when clearly it has never been.
I’ve watched my mother elevate my father to the status of a great man – in death – because in life he was a dreadful father and husband. No one is perfect, and some of us are so far from mid-center of perfection that life is always upstream … with a steep incline, and we drag those who we love, especially those we love dysfunctionally upstream with us.
I’ve learned the very necessary lesson of self-forgiveness. As Maya Angelou said, “When you know better, you do better.” Ain’t that the truth? Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you get to make amends to someone who is still living, if you’ve behaved horridly or hurt him or her. But how do you make amends to someone who has passed? Can you?
I’m *seven and a half years into the grieving process for my beautiful son, Rikki. In those seven and a half years, I suffered from mad insomnia. I had ample time to rehash, replay, and repent the way I hurt my son. Regret and guilt are natural outgrowths of grief. Did I love him enough? Did I say it enough? Did I show him that he was loved? Did he know how fucked up I was? Then after we self-flagellate we learn to let go. When you know better, you do better.
I believe, somedays, in heaven, maybe out of desperation to see my son again, to hold him, to kiss him on the forehead, to tell him how much I miss him, and to hear all about his utter joy over the past seven and a half years. Is heaven a placebo? I’ll find out one day, I suppose. But letting go of guilt, self-blame, and shame over past behavior is so utterly necessary that without the ability to do it will guarantee that we enjoy life very limitedly. The world is our oyster, and inside, it is the pearl of great price. We earn it, hard.
If you’ve hurt someone and the relationship is worth it to you, make amends. Sometimes we aren’t forgiven, and that really hurts, but live with a clear conscience, and when you do that, the world opens up for you, and your heart fills with love for all living things, and joy is attainable. First, you must let go of the guilt and release the regret. Stand up straight and own your shit, but then move past it and claim a life of pure possibilities for joy, happiness, emotional soundness, and unending love for yourself. Forgive yourself. Life passes by so quickly; Rikki was only thirty-two. I remember once I told him that his problem was that he was too kind to people who hurt him, and he said, “Momma, if the worst thing people can say about me when I die is that I was too kind, then I’ve lived a good life.” A good, short life. Maybe after someone dies, we let them off the hook for any infractions, small or monumental. I forgave my father for his many assaults on our family. I still haven’t forgiven my ex-husband, Rikki’s biological father. There are a few people, including myself, whose dysfunction hurt my boy, and I’ve forgiven all of them, except Rikki’s biological father. He has a lot for which to answer. But that is no longer here nor there. There is no need to be in any kind of relationship with him. Some things are just unforgiveable. You’ll know when it happens to you, or if you’ve ever made a blunder for which there is no return. It happens. We’re not perfect, and those of us who were raised in chaos and horror, are really not perfect. Even in self-awareness, our road is all uphill, until we reach that pinnacle place of self-actualization (Maslow).
I look at people through the lens of understanding now. Had we been loved well and nurtured lovingly with concern for our well-being, and not to avenge our parents’ childhood, we would have, in turn, loved better, and been kinder to those we love…instead of avenging our wounds at the expense of others. Bessel van der Kolk, internationally known traumatologist said, “Traumatized people traumatize people.”** One of my professors borrowed the sentence and made it more accessible when she changed the word traumatize to hurt, e.g., Hurt people hurt people.
My son and I ran the gamut of dysfunction. We had a lot to say to each other before he died. Family dysfunction is common in the United States. I grew up in it. My son grew up in it. My parents grew up in it. Historical trauma can be carried into successive generations; seems I read that somewhere (ahem, the sins of the fathers). My son and I also had plenty of time to say goodbye and…I’m sorry.
A friend of mine turned me on to the Akashic Records. I don’t know its history or culture of origin, but I do know that it’s like an ancient empty chair experience. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you. Those are the sentences to be said as you listen for the voice of your loved one speak to you from whatever peace he or she finds him or herself in. I found it to be very healing. I think the better you know someone, the better able you are to anticipate with accuracy what your loved one would say to you. I got Rikki loud and clear. He was my son, after all. We thought like each other. We hurt each other. We loved each other, fiercely.
Have I idealized my son? No. Again, he was my son, replete with dysfunction and brokenness. I was fortunate that I had the opportunity to make amends before he died, and he with me. He was not, as I am not, perfect, but he was, as I am, fearfully and wonderfully made. Sometimes we learn to love ourselves later in life; sadly, some people never learn to love themselves. Don’t be one of those people.
Find something to love, something to pour that love into, art, philanthropy, people, yourself. Those things are only possible when we are unencumbered by guilt, regret, rage, sadness, and a victim mentality. Rikki loved so many things and people. He was beautiful and broken, but toward the end of his life, he knew the healing power of forgiveness. He didn’t hold grudges. He always reached for understanding before jumping to judgment. He taught me about those things, and if I can be a bit dramatic, his life changed mine. His death is shaping me further. Grief is lifelong.
If you’re in our circle, and you hurt my son, he would try to understand what happened to you to make you strike out at him and others before he cast you aside. He’d give you chance after chance after chance, until it was necessary to put up a wall for self-protection. I strive for the same understanding, and I extend my momma’s heart in love when I tell you, “All is understood, so, all is forgiven.” Rikki and I are grateful for the great times and the happy memories. So, don’t fret. Let it go and set yourself free to be better than you were when you hurt him or hurt someone else.
Make amends with your loved ones, even those who are no longer present with us. Light a candle. Do a ritual at the beach. Talk to them. Weep and then forgive yourself. My son loved to see people happy. In every picture I have of him, he is smiling or laughing. He wasn’t perfect. I remember one time he said, “Momma, you know what my pet peeve is?” And, I retorted, “One among your infinitely many?” We laughed for twenty minutes!
See, I could have wept for seven and a half years for the ways I fucked up with my son, and I did weep for quite some time, but life kept beckoning me to grab hold, to stay with the living, to be grateful for the time and the lessons with my son, to be present for his son, to be present for myself. If I can’t be present for myself, then I can’t be present for anyone else, and I have people in my life who adore me and who I love with all my broken heart.
Please find a way to move forward and to claim a life of amazing possibilities — to do amazing things. Dedicate those things to the ones you love. Honor your loved one with the life you wish you could have had with him or with her.
Life has changed for me – forever. I’m not the same person who raised my son. Before he died, we were out walking our pit Lily, and I told Rikki, “Boo, I’m not the hardass who raised you.” His response, a chip off the ol’ block was, “I know Momma. You’ve changed. I don’t know if I like it.”
If you must shoulder regret, carry it only as far as it helps you to build emotional muscle and then drop the weight and move through the rest of your life free from regret and/or guilt. Life’s a few short trips around the sun. The past no longer needs to be prologue; the past contains lessons for how to improve ourselves. Own them. Inculcate them. Allow them to change you, and in turn, you’ll be able to help change the dynamics in your family and in your other relationships, especially those which are hurtful and over-the-top dysfunctional. Sometimes, for self-preservation, it becomes necessary to walk away from a person because the cost to your self-esteem, emotional safety, and your heart — is too much to ask of anyone.
But for the love you hold for those you’ve hurt the most, here, say it with me. I’m sorry. Forgive me. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I make time for rumination. I race through the two days I’m out in the craziness of life in California, but then I look ahead to see if there’s a day I can schedule for reminiscences – maybe even a day of supreme sorrow as I make the time to feel his absence – all the way to a meltdown. My husband is my safe person with whom I can lose it. I can’t do it with everyone, and I can’t do it every day – although I drag his absence with me every day.
There are songs that remind me of our life together – songs that made him dance, and songs that made him weep. Today I want to share in his broken heart – from all the places and by all the people he loved. We hurt the ones we love the most, and I accept my responsibility in his broken heart. We were fortunate, more fortunate than many in that we got to lay it all out on the table before he died. I was the first woman who broke his heart. Parents fuck up and then, if we’re very lucky, we have the opportunity to say the words that have always mattered more than the turbulence: I’m sorry. I love you. You are worthy.
I know that the religion of my indoctrination was really big on suffering; I spent enough years there that I felt good when I suffered for the LORD. Perhaps it is a physical feeling associated with the pleasure of being known by my stripes, but I feel good when I stop to have a day of pain and mourning. I’m thrilled that the days are not so consistent – anymore. I don’t have time to honor my son every day, but he’s always a thought and he’s in everything good I will ever do. I honor him in the way I live my life, in the way I love my family, in the way I love his family, and in the way I love the first and last woman he ever loved.
I live my life like he tried to live his, with love, kindness, intelligence, and the most amazing ability to forgive. I suppose instead of holding those of us responsible for breaking his heart, he hurt himself. He suffered for the curse and the gift of giving of his whole self when he loved someone.
He is on my heart – heavily and lovingly – on this day I’ve set aside to mourn. I made a CD of some of his favorite songs for his celebration of life. They were all celebratory – with the exception of the Evanescence song; that song hurt him deep inside his soul, and so – it hurts me. However, today, just one day out of the year, I want to feel all his heart, all of his wounds, all the places where fissures ran deep in his body, soul, and mind. I want to take up his cross and carry it today. I wish I could have shouldered all his pain while he was here.
When he was a kid, I used to ask him, “Honey, how’s your soul today?” Sometimes he would say, “Bad, Momma.” But mostly he celebrated life. I taught him to party like a rock star, and it was fun until, as he said, “Momma, when did the party stop?” I want to know what was going on in his alone moments when he struggled to use or not to use. I want to know him, the parts of him that were private, secret, in abject pain. I couldn’t help him then, and I want to feel the incompletion of a beautiful life.
Maybe it’s masochistic to schedule a date to feel, to mourn, to weep, to ache for my son, for his aches, and for mine, for a lifetime.
It’s just one day, y’all.
Maybe, it’s just my grief pattern. Kubler-Ross gave us a linear grief cycle, but grief is spastic in the beginning. I used to cry every time a Bread song played on Sirius XM. I mean I’d really lose it. Really, it makes no sense, and even as a psych major, I can’t figure it out. My son was into Korn, and Bread would have made him say, “Mom, see, you’re not the hardass you think you are.” He was honest like that, brutally sometimes. He was, after all, a chip off the ol’ block.
“Stairway to Heaven” is playing now and this brings a happy memory on a day of mourning. He helped himself to half my CD collection when he got his first apartment, after years of saying, “Led Zeppelin is not rock and roll.” Maybe he needed a reminder of our terrible-wonderful life together. We loved each other fiercely, and enmeshment fused us together as mother and son, as friend and sometimes foe, as loyal devotees of each other, but enmeshment can be dysfunctional, and it was for us. And we remained a team — come hell or high water.
Today is just another day – and I know – because people die every minute, that there is grief every single minute of every single day. I wish emotional and physical pain were not parts of the human drama, but here we are, doubled over in a pain that feels every bit as real as if your heart were actually being ripped out of your chest.
I haven’t had the meltdown yet. I’ve been listening to Rikki’s favorite songs, fun ones, except the ones that hurt him deep down in his soul. I’m trying to talk myself out of an inevitable funk, because I really don’t have the time to descend into my grief, wholly and deeply. I have shit to do.
Rikki’s birthday was a week ago on August 6. He would have been forty-one. I worked on his birthday. I booked myself solid and I was grateful for the distraction and the scheduled delay in losing it on the day my precious baby boy graced me as his mother. I drove home, a two-hour drive, and arrived home at eleven p.m. and my husband had written a tribute to my son on Facebook. He captured Rikki’s kind essence. He captured the complicated relationship we had. He captured the love between us. I wept in his arms after a long day of keeping my shit together. I made it through another birthday without my son.
I have a busy life and I don’t always have time to just sit and miss my son. Maybe I don’t need to have a day where I feel the loss and allow the pain to wash over me. Maybe I don’t. But today, I just need to miss him, my Rikki, my Boo Bear, the Love of my Life.
Pachelbel’s Canon is playing now and Rikki loved beautiful things – and he found beauty where others didn’t, or couldn’t. He was beautiful – and today, I just miss him is all.
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 –.
Tomorrow, August 6, at 3:15 p.m. is my son’s birthday. He would be 41. I’ve booked myself solid for tomorrow: clients all day, two groups to facilitate, four hours in traffic (round-trip). I’m cool. My heart will feel pangs, just as my body did 41 years ago. I went into labor on the fifth of August (my younger brother’s birthday). Rikki was born the next day – his own birthday — until his son was born on August 6, 2009. He shares a birthday with his dad. This is the 8th birthday without my son, and this is the first birthday in Louie’s entire life that I will not be with him on his birthday. It’s a weird feeling this birthday. I’ve always had Louie on his birthday to celebrate and to distract me from the sadness (until I went to bed) because it is also my beautiful boy’s birthday. Forty-one? He should be here to celebrate another year of life, another year as a father, another year…
I’ll be okay. I always am. I just need to tell someone that tomorrow is the day I became a mother to a tiny, infant son. He was beautiful. He was born with red hair, even though his biological father is native American with very dark hair, and my hair is almost black. He has some German ancestry. He would go bald in the months following until his hair grew like a weed…and then, as a young man, he would have tresses like Head from Korn, and then he decided shaving his head was easier and better, so he returned, full circle to a bald head. I miss him at every stage of his life – and I’ll miss him for the rest of mine.
I have work to do today and for the next two; life moves forward – even though we may not be ready for it. I’ve not been ready for it for eight years and eight months…but here I am, another birthday to celebrate without my son.
How do I console the inconsolable? the broken-hearted? Those who ache deep in their souls? How do I make their pain STOP! How do I do that? I’m in constant soul-pain From the most significant Loss a parent can endure. the loss of a child — I know pain at a level so deep. It’s as infinite as a black hole. How? You ask. How does one console the inconsolable? Don’t be afraid of our overwhelm. We sometimes need to purge from our souls.
We howl from the deepest part
of ourselves. Don’t be surprised when we tell you we’d sell our souls to bring our children
back and other fantasies. I cried for years. Today is going to be a day of remembrance…a day in which I revere my son with tears and laughter. How do I do it, you ask? Some days, I wonder. How does one console the inconsolable? You can’t. How does one go on after deep losses? You do. You just do.
Grief to Gratitude 