I haven't written much recently because I was told that I make people uncomfortable. And while I already knew that my presence makes some people uncomfortable, and that sometimes the things I write can make some people uncomfortable, it is another thing altogether to be told that.
A friend told me recently that whoever you are before your grief is who you are in your grief, just more so. I have never been meek, so my grief response is not meekness. I'm passionate and opinionated, so now I seem to have acquired an emotional megaphone. haha...oh geez.
I sat down to write today after I received a couple of nudges from people who had no idea I was feeling like I was supposed to be more quiet about my grief. If that was you, thank you.
Recently I was talking with a friend in the dead kid club who was struggling with guilt. Here's the truth. Nearly all of us struggle with guilt. Almost every mom of a dead kid I know lives with this tension of knowing she did her very best while simultaneously feeling like she could have loved more and tried harder. Here is what I said to my friend:
She is gone, but she is so happy now. She has nothing but love for you. She doesn't believe any of the coulds or shoulds or woulds that hold you hostage. Her suffering doesn't matter to her anymore because it is gone and she will never experience it again.
I think as mothers one of the hardest parts of this shitshow is the images of our kids' suffering seared into our brains. It doesn't go away. It torments us. But we're the only ones it affects anymore. No one else is plagued by memories of the specific suffering we witnessed or absorbed. And it isn't affecting our children anymore. They have been completely released from suffering. So what do we do with it? What is it doing hanging around? Mostly I think it harms us and it is good to tell it to leave. I don't know if it will ever totally leave us, but I think we can hope for a loosened grip.
My friend has this mantra, "fear is a liar". I think anxiety is, too. When it gets bad I yell at it. I tell it it's a liar. And I tell it the truth. That I was a good mom and I took care of my kid and I did my very best with the information I had. You did all those things, too. We just didn't have all the information we needed when it would have been needed to change the trajectory we couldn't see."
I wish I could adequately explain the memories of sheer suffering that regularly play in mind's eye. The things that Eli had to bear that I witnessed. It is crippling. And most moms of dead kids share this experience. We know we did everything we could. But it doesn't feel like it.
