Bereaved Parents Awareness Month

or for anyone who is grieving

I want to start by saying that today’s blog post is a tough one to write.

For the most part, writing generally comes pretty easy for me. But today?

Well, this blog post will not.

In fact, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, when I should be testing recipes or working on my Bayou Life column or watching the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas in July movies with my daughter, I’m in fact sitting in my office staring out the window.

And thinking.

Thinking of the sadness and grief that seems to be all around me.

Thinking about friends and loved ones who are in that dark abyss of grief right now.

And feeling for them, in only the way someone who has experienced grief can. Especially those who are suffering through the loss of a loved one…a child, a spouse, a parent.

July is National Bereaved Parent’s month, and to be perfectly honest, I would rather have a colonoscopy than write about losing my child (no offense to the gastroenterologists out there…I know they are necessary, just not pleasant).

Although I speak of my son often, I rarely write about the loss of him. It’s painful, without a doubt, but more than that, it floods my soul with memories that bring profound sadness to this writer.

But I promised my blog would have more substance than just a good recipe for salsa and grieving through the loss of someone we love, especially one of our children, well, that’s about as much substance as you can get.

So, I’ll start at the beginning. It’s been 16 years, readers, since I lost my son, Samuel.

16 long years of grieving a life that barely had a chance to get started.

16 years of wondering what his life would have been like…what he would have looked like…what interests he would have had…would he have liked spaghetti or lasagna, apples or bananas.

Wait.

I don’t think he would have been a picky eater, especially food his mamma cooked, because, well, he used to gnaw the rib meat off the bone, nearly down to the marrow. He loved ribs.

Then he would hide the bones in his closet in his shoes. I guess he needed a snack in his closet on standby in case he got hungry while he was playing.

And he loved coleslaw. Coleslaw? He was two years old…aren’t they supposed to love Skittles and Cheerios?

Wait.

He did love Skittles. And Cheerios. And grits.

He was a southern baby who loved his grits…with a little sugar, of course.

And Dum Dum suckers.

Oh, and cake.

16 years.

When I hear about parents that lose a child, my heart literally dulls its beat.

It’s true. And I get this sinking feeling in my stomach.

I don’t even have to know them to be affected like this. Of course, it’s worse when I do, but knowing what these parents are facing takes me back to a place that I have to work really hard to stay detached from.

That place, was 16 years ago when my entire world went black. If you have experienced loss, you know this color well.

For me and my family, it was in a 24-hour window, when my baby was being pulled down the beach behind a boogie board, laughing at the top of his lungs, and the next day, he was fighting for his life.

How is it possible to be on the beach with your family, taking beautiful pictures in matching outfits, and the next day be in a hospital PICU facing death?

It didn’t make any sense to me then; it doesn’t make any sense to me now.

And it never will.

It’s terrifying to think how life can change in an instant. One bad decision, one unexpected illness, one miscalculated judgment can irrevocably alter your life in such a way that you almost don’t recognize the life you had before.

Or remember it.

In the days and years since Samuel passed away, I have desperately tried to keep his memory alive. His brother, who was not quite five years old, desperately wants to remember him.

It has also been comforting to watch my daughter, who came three years after him, love someone she never knew…comforting and beautiful. He was her brother, after all.

For the rest of us, we have spent 16 years trying to crawl out of a black abyss that is both unfair and unfathomable.

And that “crawl” is a continued process, a cross we will bear the rest of our lives. If you have experienced it, you know full well what this struggle looks like.

It starts as an hourly grind, where you are literally moving hour to hour, in a trance of disbelief, feeling as though any minute your broken heart will just stop beating.

And at times, wishing it would. Wishing so the brokenness will be gone…so the pain will stop.

If you know Jesus, and thankfully I do, He is your only friend.

Jesus and time.

Time takes you away from those agonizing days, from those restless nights, from those crying meltdowns that come out of nowhere and at a second’s notice.

Or no notice.

Time gives you clarity, perspective and opportunities to hold close memories that you otherwise might have forgotten.

Time puts distance from that “moment” when your life as you knew it changed. A change you neither ask for nor wanted.

A change that does in fact “change” you, reshape you.

A change that will give you a heightened sense of perspective…a point of reference for how you live the rest of your life.

Does the color of the icing on the cupcakes really matter for the kindergarten class party?   

As this reshaping process continues, and as your friend, Father Time, marches on, the minute-to-minute grief evolves into day-to-day, month-to month and eventually year-to-year.

The pain never leaves. But you find yourself being able to cope…to breathe.

For me, and everyone grieves differently, it was during this time evolution that I began to realize the power I held, to use my grief cycle to help someone else.

Which is why I am sharing today.

Believe me, it’s not a power I want to hold, that I would have chosen to hold, but we don’t always get to choose our life, sometimes it chooses us.

And it chose me. It chose my family. And “being chosen” has created many opportunities for us to comfort someone else, to help make a way for those that have come after us.

For those grieving today, you, too, will one day hold that same power.

A power to give hope that life indeed does go on, differently, of course, but it moves on.

It will either move on with you or it will move on without you.

And it wasn’t a quick decision for me, to choose to move out of that dark abyss, but at some point in my grief process, I did in fact make that decision.

I realized I did have the strength to move forward, with my baby, even though he wasn’t with me physically, he would always be a part of me.

The best part of me and Scott, actually. The toothy, beautiful, fearless, rib eating, blue Linus blanket carrying, Wizard of Oz loving, happy two-year old best part of us.

With this realization, and at a time I can’t exactly pinpoint, that debilitating crawl began to evolve back into a walk, a walk I never thought would be possible again.

But I did walk. And here I am. And here you will be, too.

And at some point, you will be called on to help someone crawl to their healing place. And trust me, as difficult as it sounds, this level of intimacy with someone who is hurting, will bring you comfort in a way you never thought possible.

Which is quite possibly, one of the highest callings we can have…to use our pain, our brokenness, to help someone, our family, our friends, a complete stranger, find their way out of theirs.

If you are in the abyss today, I pray this blog post will provide you a small measurement of encouragement; and give you a glimpse, even if it’s ever so tiny, that your brokenness, your suffering, your pain, will not break you; you will in fact emerge stronger than ever.

Even if you have to suffer for a while. (I Peter 5:10,11)