THE AFTERMATH: A Mother’s Passage Through Grief

It’s Wednesday, October 16, and I am standing outside in a lonely spot.  I guess it normally would be called a forlorn, windswept location except that it is sunny, in the upper 40’s, and there is barely any wind blowing, just an occasional puff of wind arising out of the north.  There is a hawk making his lazy circles in the air, a large pond lies to the east of me with sunshine producing sparkling diamonds on its surface.  Some days there are cattle about lowing quietly as they graze and lap water from the pond but not today.  Otherwise, I am alone.  The crisp air of fall and the relative seclusion of this location combine together in reflecting my mood at this particular moment.  Not more than thirty minutes ago at my bi-annual dental appointment, I conversed with a young woman who has a two year old son.  Potty training came up and we discussed this subject briefly.  I told her my youngest son, Stephen, provided the greatest challenge for me.  She responded in kind.  One of her brothers had this particular trouble, too, slowing down and using said potty.  My appointment ended.  I left the office thinking about Stephen as a young child of two, all innocence, smiles and mischief at this stage of his life.  Before I reached my car, the tears began to form and flow for my Stephen.  Eventually, I drove home and told my husband Shelby that I was leaving for this unfrequented place, though not telling him that I needed to think and shed some more tears outside in this beautifully appointed autumn day. 

Thinking and crying over my son has been my constant companion over these past nineteen months since he took his own life March 5, 2018.  Death of any loved one brings deep grief.  I’ve grieved for both of my parents, three grandparents, more recently my mother-in-law, and numerous other family members and friends over the years.  Undeniably, the passing of my youngest son has brought a mourning that has far exceeded all others.  I grieve not only for his passing but for the life he gave up on and left behind, and the terrible hopelessness he experienced before, leading up to, and during that fatal moment.  This once exuberant and charming child had a real zest for life.  Near the end of the remaining years of his life, however, his countenance changed as his heart experienced increasing rage replacing the loss of faith, hope, and love, which I call his fall from grace.  Trying to restore that which he had lost, he turned to artificial means with which to ignite the joy his heart once held, which mostly served to prolong his spiral downward.  I continue to lament his fall from grace as well.

Within the month after my son’s passing, I experienced a serious injury to my left knee.  I will use this knee injury as a metaphor for the grief I have undergone for my son from the beginning up to the present.  Inward, soulish pain, as with outward, physical pain, produces a very similar response.  Minor cuts and bruises experienced by a young child will elicit tearful wails, while in an adult, the initial response may be almost nonexistent.  This is not the point I am making with regard to my knee injury, as a comparison of a relative degree of pain between the knee injury and the loss of my son.  The knee injury, though painful and serious, did not cause emergency measures to correct it, but it did take months to heal up to the point where I have nearly forgot all about it.  As with my knee, not exactly with my soul either.  I will continue to mourn my son for as long as I live, but the overwhelming sense of loss and the raw emotional response has subsided greatly. 

Initially, with both the grief and the injury, I experienced many restless and sleepless nights.  It was actually less painful for my knee when I was up walking around on it over lying prone on my bed at night.  Within the month after my son’s death, I applied for and was offered a full time position at my place of employment.  Going from part time to full time, the extended hours and the new challenges I faced in this position provided for a much needed diversion of my attention.  In focusing outward, I was relieved of the great turmoil still occurring within.  This began the process, for me, of feeling that everything was “okay” in the world.  My fellow associates at work still acknowledged my son and his passing, followed by many hugs, and offers of other types of help.  Reconnecting to the world outside, building bridges with other people, finding proper challenges, and engaging with life’s small and large moments helped to build a foundation for which I could move forward in life again.  With such care, concern and connection, I began sleeping better at night as well.

As the swelling and pain in my knee subsided, I removed the brace from it allowing for a freer range of movement.  For many weeks, though, I could not kneel down on the ground and had to be careful when climbing up ladders at my job; going down was easier.  During the early weeks and months that followed, I needed to speak of my son with others.  Who better than with my son’s father?  Yes, Shelby and I spoke of many things concerning his life and why he had followed such a ruinous path.   Healing tears would flow.  I spoke with my other sons, as well, though not at the same length as with their father.  A fellow associate offered to talk things over with me too.  She had lost two sons.  We chatted on the phone a time or two and at work.  I began a special journal and writing my thoughts and observations helped invaluably.  Others came into the store where I worked acknowledging Steve’s passing and offering their condolences, and I spoke with them.  Caution was still exercised with regard to certain activities.  I could not go walking in our downhill park area.  Memories of my son overpowered me there.  I became very sensitive to other’s criticism of me and negative reaction to me, and this nearly derailed my move into full time employment.  Through sheer willpower, I continued making strides toward moving forward.

As the months passed (seven or eight months post-injury), my knee still caused me some discomfort, and I was beginning to wonder if it ever would be free from pain again.  Most of the discomfort occurred as I slept at night.  I still needed a special pillow to prop it up.  On my days off from work, I kept busy with household chores, running errands and other activities of choice.  The solitude in carrying out these homebound tasks produced a deep sadness in my soul, though not depression.  This sadness arose from reflecting upon my son.  At home, I had more “space” to think on things. Going back to work dispelled this state of mind because of the pressing matters working in retail produces.  At work, I had very little “space” to reminisce about my son.  I branched out more in social engagements.  Attending two weddings in 2018, along with attending a deceased relative’s funeral, attending my granddaughter’s first birthday, restored more “normalcy” in my life.  Then came October…  My son missed his twenty-sixth birthday.  November and December…  The holiday season had begun!  Thankfully, our local hospice offered a special candle lighting memorial service for those of us still in the throes of our grief and experiencing the first holiday season without our loved ones.  More tears shed.  The holidays passed in good order, and the blessed new year had begun—2019!  Saying good-bye to 2018 meant, for Shelby and me, shedding the “unfathomable agony and sorrow of this past year,” to quote from what I wrote at the beginning of my March 5, 2018 posting on this site, entitled One Year Ago Today….  Though not completely free from grief, I continued strengthening within. 

However, my Friday, 7/26/19 journal entry reads, “Will the pain and emptiness cease?  I do not know.  It is so very hard to let go of my son’s memory of him….”  As hoped for, the injury to my knee by this time had become but a memory.  Today, it poses no pain and very little discomfort.  Recently, in my Monday, October 6, 2019 journal entry, corresponding healing within my soul has also emerged, “Sadly, time has lessened my grief for Steve…But I do miss having my son walking this earth!” 

Today is October 19, 2019.  This would have been my dearly departed son’s twenty-seventh birthday. He left this earth at age twenty-five, and this will be his age always in my own mind as long as I walk this earth in my present body.  Three days ago, I finished placing a fresh fall floral arrangement at my son’s grave site.  That forlorn location, where I went to this past Wednesday, is the cemetery where my son’s remains are buried among the many hundreds that “reside” there as well.  In this quiet, lonely spot, granite monuments and colorful silk flowers bear mute witness to the many who once lived, loved, died, and are buried beneath them.  This place does not particularly provide me with comfort, but it does give me a place and space to grieve for my son and to reflect upon the one I once welcomed joyfully into this world, nurtured from infanthood to manhood and, sadly, watched as they lowered the coffin containing his lifeless body into the ground.    Assuredly, this is not all there is concerning life and death!

Dear reader, time and faith can heal the brokenhearted.  We are given specific promises from our Creator in His word, The Holy Bible, concerning these weighty matters of life and death.  It is written in the Scriptures after the new heaven and new earth are the order in God’s universe, that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain:  for the former things are passed away” Revelation 21:4.  This is my blessed hope, as a born again believer in Jesus Christ.  My hope, also, is to see my son again in his glorified body, for he received Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour years ago when he was but a young child, guileless and trusting.  On behalf of my son, James Stephen, I am eternally grateful for God’s marvelous grace in granting eternal life to those of us who believe on the name of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.  World without end.  Amen.