The duality of grief

My heart was pounding before I opened my eyes. I’d been in the middle of a bad dream, but once I was awake, the slapping of water against fiberglass shifted my attention as our boat rocked side to side. This anchorage at Great Guana Cay was rolly because of its proximity to the Atlantic, its shallow sandbanks, and currents pushing through narrow cuts. The turbulence combined with anxiety from the dream put me on alert that someone was trying to board our boat. I listened for footsteps and thought of hatches we may have left unlocked.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone boarded our boat in the middle of the night, though it would be the first time while at anchor. But that’s not what was happening. It was just the motion combined with residual fear from the bad dream. And the dreaded day with its steel-toed boots waiting to kick me in the stomach. I reached for my phone: it was 4:43 a.m. I turned off my 5 a.m. alarm and forced eyelids to open wider, alerting the brain that it was time to sit up.

With 350-square-feet and four people, there isn’t much personal space on this boat. Or alone time. Our seven year old wants to play beginning at 7 a.m. and our 23 year old is ready to socialize as soon as the seven year old goes to bed. A few weeks back, I woke early thinking about a proposal I’d written and then got out of bed to make a few changes before hitting send. Being at the computer in solitude for a couple of hours before others woke felt like discovering a secret. No one talked to me or asked for a snack. I’ve been getting up in the dark intentionally ever since. I’ve been using the time to write and think.

On that particular day I was thinking about the calendar. It was Mother’s Day. I am estranged from my mother; the boy who made me a mom in 2003 is dead. The day also marked the crossing of an invisible chasm. It marked the day that Riley – my 11 ½ year old son – had been dead longer than he was alive. With the help of a pod of compassionate humans, I had thus far endured 4,219 days without him. 

In the same way that I have known that his younger brothers would pass him in age and I know that his seven-year-old sister will one day pass him in age, I knew this day would come. In reality, it was just another day without him. He was dead yesterday and five years ago, and he will still be dead tomorrow and five years from now.

Nonetheless, my body’s grief calculator had felt the day coming. My buttons have been more easily pressed, making me erratic and distant. In my endless calculation of life and death, I have been visualizing things that can be made and unmade: a pencil sketch; a kitchen mess; a bed. I cut my hair with kitchen scissors shortly after Riley died; it grew back. Addition, subtraction. Subtraction, addition. But none of those are like the birthing of a child and then bearing witness to their death.

A child’s death is not the quiet undoing of a life. It is an explosion that leaves an invisible, weighted menace that must be heaved with you wherever you go. It is shouty and bossy and distracting and demanding and unruly. It carries a stick and whacks your knuckles if you fail to follow its ever-changing rules. It uses mind tricks to make it hard to concentrate before it trips you on the stairs. Then it kicks you, and then tells you it loves you. And when the menace has done its job and it’s gotten you to push your loved ones away, you find your child. And sitting with your dead child without distractions feels like air and love and peace.

I loathe the menace and its abusive ways; I appreciate the menace for guiding me back to Riley. For clearing the path, for creating space where I can sit with my boy uninterrupted and roll in the sadness, frustration, envy, disappointment, longing, rage, and blame. Once I punch through those, I find closeness, connection, tenderness, and love. So much love. I can almost feel Riley's hand in mine and the weight of his body in my lap. I can hear him talking about the SF Giants' lineup or humming while doing his homework. I can see snuggling his stuffed penguins and dripping hot sauce onto almost everything. And when I soak up moment, I can almost hear his voice saying, mom I love you, and I imagine pressing my nose into his hair and inhaling before and a smile spreads across my wet face.

This is the duality of grief. On the surface is the visible you that other people see and interact with. The you that people see can smile and talk and who enjoys making bagels and can be upbeat and look forward to running, hiking, or line dancing with friends or family. That you looks like a whole, nearly functioning person who has hard days once in a while, typically around anniversaries and birthdays.

The other you has the ever-present sidekick. It is always needling you, being demanding, rubbing interactions with guilt and longing, making sure that you are fully aware of your child's absence. That your child isn't at and never will be at the dinner table, in college, working at some job, have a significant other, or have children of their own. That they will never call or text or visit. And with its continual reminders of the absences, the menace is trying to stop you from enjoying your other children, your partner, the people who have loved you through all of it. So much energy is expended trying to keep the menace out of sight.

In both versions, you are missing something and feel incomplete and conflicted and guilty and sad. At least that’s what’s happening over here – grief is unique. And on this day, for me, on the other side of this invisible chasm, I’m trying to ignore the menace. I'm trying calculate how to balance how lucky I am with the grief. I have a great life, a great love, a great family. And yet... 

Both are true. The grief makes me feel ungrateful for what I do have. Enjoying what I have or being joyful in the moment makes me feel guilty.

I don’t know how to hold both yet. There isn’t one without the other. They are woven into an elaborate knot. Perhaps the problem is that I have an expectation that I should be able to untangle it. Maybe that’s not how this works. Maybe I need to make peace with the menace. To be okay that there is pain in the joy and love in the pain. To be okay with the menace making space for me to be with Riley (although it would be great if the menace could have less of a negative impact on my family).

After getting texts from my son and a call from my bonus son and breakfast in bed from my daughters (along with a homemade card), my heart felt full and empty, empty and full. Happy, sad. Guilty, angry. Alone, loved. Whole, broken. Broken, whole.

Grief and horizons

As we cross the Gulf Stream at the helm of our sailboat, I’m struck by the line between sky and water. It is a remarkably straight distinction between two worlds. It cuts across the distance in every direction. I hold the sight, concentrating so that eyes and brain come to an agreement to retain this view – it is special. 

Looking into the distance, my thoughts whisper out to it acknowledging that no matter how far we go toward it we will never reach this artificial line in the same way that you can never get to the end of the rainbow.

I swivel my head from left to right and as far as I can see, there is only this line, these shades of blue, this breeze petting my face or causing hair to whip around ears and into my eyes, depending. The uninterrupted line is like something drawn with a ruler in the distance. 

Many of us have seen a version of this – a slice of this separation – standing on a beach looking into the distance. But as we cross toward the Bahamas and the 360-degree view surrounds us for the first time, it feels like an important message from the universe. But I don't know what it is just yet.

Grief began driving us to upend our stationary life in California after Riley died in 2014. Last summer our plan was nearing fruition as we gave away most of our things and filled a tiny storage unit with sentimental items. Being on the water is the culmination of our years of planning, the beginning of our escaping, of running away. All of it promised to reduce grief's weight. 

Then we drove. And drove. And drove. First from California to Florida. Then from Florida to New York City. Then after three months in England, we drove from New York City back to Florida. 

Grief stayed the same.

If anything, being away from Riley's things, his bedroom, his clothes, his toys, his school, and the baseball fields he played on became a new, weighted layer of grief to manage. When we finally moved onto a boat in February, I thought settling into our new home would be the key to finally shifting grief. And at times, being away from the place where Riley died was a relief because I had the illusion of control – thinking I could decide when to let it pummel me. But the sadness continued to course through me without an appointment, just as heavy. 

I had been clinging to the hope that each step would allow grief to soften its jaw... Once we move out of our house. Once we drive across the country. Once we find a boat. Once we move onto our boat. 

But Riley’s absence, his death, his hospitalizations, his surgeries, are still ever-present. At the same time Riley’s smile, his laugh, his floppy hair, his nail-nibbling, his love of penguins – are equally real. The lists hurt my heart in different ways, but they both hurt. 

We've seen dolphins and sea turtles and flying fish and a sting ray glided its body over my toes. We've padded along soft sand and splashed in warm water. Grief continues to clamp its unrelenting jaw around me. Leaving Fort Lauderdale was my last once we. 

That realization has amplified everything. And when the hurt is bigger, like it has been in recent days, I pull away from the people I love who have run away and toward this sailing life with me. I retreat into a shell of unfixable sadness. And my hurt hurts all of us. I become short-tempered, brusque, erratic – a version of myself that I am not proud of. 

I'm hyper-aware of this privileged opportunity to run away. I'm also hyper-aware of how self-indulgent grief can feel. The world is full of tragedy, and yet the clay that shapes my being is my beautiful boy and his death. 

When the sadness is inside, it doesn’t matter how pretty the view is.

I can't help but try to make sense of this realization. Walking along the beach and seeing the storm clouds bubbling toward us, I know that no matter how far ones goes toward it, the horizon is always in the distance, always unreachable. And that line between sky and sea is an illusion. One rises above the other. Yet, the sky is full of water and the water is full of oxygen. They are connected through the water cycle and one will always be a part of the other. Like life and death. 

Riley is my past; he is my present. There are the experiences he had; there are the experiences he will never have. The past is full of possibility; the present is full of memories. Riley is here, Riley is gone. Riley is everywhere. Riley is nowhere. There will never be a Once we that provides a reprieve. Like the horizon, that idea was just an illusion. 

Grief and thrifting

My boots shuffled along the long aisles of stained linoleum. My hands slid hangers along the rack to look at the jumbled assortment of tops and jeans and kids jackets and pajamas. I did not find a small rain jacket for my daughter. I was not surprised. I wandered along, not sure of what else I was looking for, but I knew that if or when I found it, it would make itself known. I picked up a coffee grinder. I picked up a backpack covered in unicorns. I found a small North Face fleece jacket in a pile of duffel bags and tucked it under my arm. I found a pair of gold Mary Janes just the right size for my kindergartener. In the checkout, I spotted a sudoku book on the shelf next to me and remembered how Riley and I used to do the puzzles together. I fanned through the pages and realized it was unused. I kept it and imagined Riley whispering suggestions to me in the months to come as I attempt to solve the harder puzzles.

Grief is chaotic. Thoughts don’t make sense. The world feels upside down. There were times when I couldn’t believe that walls were sturdy, when I questioned whether everything I saw was a mirage. There were times when I wore the same clothes pulled from the floor next to my bed for nearly two weeks straight. I couldn’t fill out a form that would allow our surviving family members to go to a grief support group. The words didn’t make sense. The questions were too overwhelming. I couldn’t hold a pen. Friends left food on our porch because I didn’t know how to go to the grocery store. Being in public was too scary, too overwhelming, too unknown. I would see women and they would turn away from me. I would see women and I would turn away from them. I was famous in my town, but not in a good way.

I say was because it’s been so long now. People’s lives have moved on. Riley’s peers have moved away. My surviving children’s peers have moved away. Riley’s death is old news. For other people. But not for me. The waves are just as turbulent, though they knock me over with less regularity.

Grief is also full of guilt. I grew my baby wrong. It was a mistake with epic, life-altering consequences. My confidence plummeted. And for many years, I pulled the brim of my hat over my eyes; I kept my eyes down; I sat away from other moms and families at little league or basketball games.

Grief is full of fear. I was fearful of getting other things wrong. And I have gotten them wrong, though with less consequences. I have taken my children to their practices at the wrong times. I have driven to the incorrect locations. I have gotten lost while driving home from familiar places. I failed to renew my driver’s license, accidentally driving around for months with an expired license. I have dropped a dozen eggs. I have had my phone silenced when one of my children needed to reach me. I didn’t fix the gate that separated our dog from our chickens, and the chickens were killed. Most, but not all, of this was inconsequential.

All through the years, though, the thrift store is one of the few places I have felt at home, and I haven’t understood why. But last week, as I did a TikTok about my thrifted outfit with fall vibes that makes me feel cute and confident, I gave myself some space to consider that question. If I could pull a cute outfit from the jumbled chaos of the thrift store, I could bring order to chaos. I could take something unruly and make it orderly. I could assemble a mishmash and make it feel as if it was all made to go together. It gave me a small amount of control. I can accomplish this small thing. Mistakes only cost a few dollars. I am capable. And being capable of this one thing has given me the smallest amount of confidence. 

Plus, putting on something cute and feeling good in my clothes is an exercise in self-care. And that is huge for this grieving mom. 

Take your platitudes and leave

There was an article in the NY Times yesterday about what not to say to a grieving person. It said never say, “Everything happens for a reason.” 

And that is good advice because when you say “everything happens for a reason” to a grieving person, they may want to punch you in the face. Because most people are polite, they will not punch you in the face, but don’t be surprised if you are kicked out of their inner circle of safe and trusted friends.

People said this to me shortly after Riley died. They also said this to me after Riley was born and we were told that he would need three heart surgeries to survive (though he ended up having six during his 11 years). Luckily for them, I restrained my fists. But it makes me wonder how this asinine phrase became a popular reply to grief. Please give me an example of when this has been useful. Seriously.

I imagine it comes from religion where we’re meant to put our faith in some greater power who has a master plan. And the only way we can make sense of a child’s death, or a young parent’s death or your house being swept away by a hurricane, or any other tragedy, is that it must serve some higher purpose.

But, honestly, life is random. We are powerless. And if we acknowledged this unspoken contract with the universe, we’d probably stay home more often. Because we get into metal boxes and move at high speeds on highways. We let our kids go to school. We know that people walking around are carrying guns. We know that there are contagious diseases. We live in earthquake zones or in places dubbed "Tornado Alley." We know that there are alligators and bears and bacteria that can overwhelm our immune systems. Every single day we don’t die is pretty astonishing. And getting to live another day is not because some higher power granted me the opportunity to do so because I am good or deserving. It is just luck. I think luck is too terrifying for most people to acknowledge.

So, what do you say when someone you love is faced with unimaginable tragedy? The article recommended: “I am so sorry for your loss. I don’t know how you feel, but I am here to help in any way I can.” Or something like: “I am always just a phone call away. I am here for you.” And, of course, if they are sharing with you how they are doing, validate their feelings. 

The article reminded me that I've been wanting to read Everything Happens for a Reason, and Other Lies I've Loved, by Kate Bowler.

If you are incapable of being there, of sitting with discomfort, of saying something less painful than "Everything happens for a reason," please, just take your platitudes and leave.

Grief and the ADAA

I just had a piece published on the Anxiety and Depression Association of America's website. They have a great library of personal stories that you can filter via disorder (anxiety, panic attacks, bipolar, grief, substance abuse, etc.), and I'm a huge believer in the power of connecting with others through stories. 

Over the years, I have been in individual therapy, and I've spent years in couples therapy. I spent a year in a support group for families who have children with congenital heart defects and three years in a support group for bereaved parents. (Just need to acknowledge how fortunate I am to have health insurance to cover chunks of the costs... access to this stuff should be a right, not a privilege.) And through all of it, I've learned a lot about self-care and supporting others who are struggling. 

It feels good to be reading. It feels good to be running. It feels good to be writing. It feels great to get published. Go forth and read!

Grief and the slow erasing

Just like I’d done dozens of times, I’d clicked “Add to cart.” No big deal. Only this time it felt profound. And after fretting about it for ages and wondering what slippery slope I was stepping onto, I clicked the button. What purchase could cause such internal turmoil? A twin-sized duvet cover patterned with whimsical pink and blue and gray unicorns with rainbow-colored manes. It’s for the little one’s fifth birthday.

Delighted in the downpour

She will love it. She loves unicorns and rainbows and flowers and fairies and mermaids and princesses and dresses and tiaras and beaded necklaces and pretty much anything that is pink or red or purple or sparkly or glittery, even though I’ve provided her with trains and Matchbox cars and trucks and shovels and so many things that are green.

Green was Riley’s favorite color. And I have lots of green things. I was even given green blankets when she was born because she was born in grief’s wake for my boy who loved the rain and green and Matchbox cars and trains and Tabasco and garlic and olives. And, although she loves olives and garlic, and garlic-stuffed olives, and she liked Matchbox cars and trains for a while, she’s her own person with her own interests. That, and through preschool and transitional kindergarten, she’s been exposed to kids with Frozen backpacks and twirly dresses and sparkly blankets that look like mermaid tails. And so when she’s in the bath, she asks me to comb her mermaid hair and she pretends that the washcloth is her tail.

The hard part isn’t that she likes different things from Riley, although I really, really did enjoy putting elaborate train tracks together for the months that she was into that. We’d roll our wooden trains over the bridges and through the tunnels just like I did when Riley was small. The hard part is that I wanted to breathe life into Riley’s things for longer. I wanted her to pick up where he’d left off and in using his idle things, give me another chance to be with Riley in my thoughts as I remember the hours we did those things together when he was alive. In fairness, at 11, there weren’t many train tracks or cities drawn on cardboard for Matchbox cars to roll along.

For the 18 months he lived in this house, he had a green duvet with different colored green dots all over it. He picked it out at IKEA when he got his very own bed. For a long time, my boys shared a queen bed and a single queen blanket. But when we moved into this house, I took them to the store and that’s what he chose. His brother chose something gray with bright orange and red swirls. And Riley’s green duvet has been on his bed in his room since he died. It’s been mostly idle.

Before the youngest came along, I would lie on his bed and smooth my face into his green pillowcase and hug his Freddies. And after she was born when she was nursing several times a night, I would sometimes sleep near her in his bed with the green sheets. It’s been her bedroom her entire life, more than three times longer than it was Riley’s room, even though I still call it Riley’s room. And once she switched to a big bed, it was Riley’s bed she began sleeping in and Riley’s duvet she’s been sleeping under.

It's her room; it’s Riley’s room. Riley’s treasures and belongings are still there, but there are so many other things there too. Sometimes it’s hard to remember which is which and what belongs to whom. And, of course, she says things like, “Mom, Riley says I can play with his marbles” which makes his things her things too.

She didn’t ask for a different duvet. She never said she didn’t like the green one. I just want her to be seen as a separate person and to acknowledge her preferences. So, because her fifth birthday is today and she loves all those pink things, I decided to get her that new duvet cover – the one that matches her interests. I suppose I’ll fold up the green duvet and the green pillow case and the green sheet and put them in the closet near Riley’s medicine that is in a ziplock bag, with Riley’s clothes that are still hung, and next to his socks and pajamas – things I’d hoped she’d wear when she was big enough. Though she probably won’t. She’ll have shirts and pajamas covered in rainbows and fairies and mermaids. 

This shrinking or contraction after someone dies happens all the time. Out with the old, in with the new. Making space for whatever is next. She didn’t ask to fill Riley’s shoes, not that she could. You cannot replace a person with a different person. It’s just another shift, another goodbye. Another folding of time.

Riley's green things will be mine to visit when I need to time travel and be with my boy and his beloved things. I cannot help but wonder what will be put away next and what shift will happen that will make his life less visible. It all feels like a slow erasing. 

Grief and milestones

Photo credit: Jina Morgese, Ember & Earth

I hemmed and hawed. It would be our 10th wedding anniversary, then a few weeks later, it would be my 50th birthday. These are big milestones. Weighted. They are time markers. They are accomplishments. They are heavy with grief. I wanted to honor them, though. 

Attorney Friend, who now lives near the west coast of Florida, had offered to keep the four-year-old for three nights while we acknowledged these days, just the two of us. We jumped at the opportunity. We had only had one night away from the four-year-old since she was born. It was the night after a bear broke into our vacation rental. Our college-aged daughter was fortuitously visiting, so we left the small one with the big one and we drove away. When we got there, we screwed plywood over a smashed front door, cleaned up bear poop, made nail boards to deter other bears from getting too close to our house, and drove soiled rugs to the dump so that our tenants could move back in. 

So we would be in Florida. We would have an alternate reality for three nights. One in which we had childless lives. I rented a hotel room on the water in Sarasota, a short walk from St. Armands Circle. There would be warm water to swim in, white sandy beaches to walk along, and tables at restaurants to eat at that didn’t include a high chair and a small voice singing “Let it Go.” There would also be cocktails and dresses and late nights staring at the stars and into each other’s eyes. 

And I wanted to have our photos taken to commemorate it all. When I told Attorney Friend my plan, I couldn’t articulate why I wanted photos. “Why wouldn’t you want them?” she asked, as if the answer was obvious.

At the time, it wasn’t obvious for me. It was just a feeling. Or I just hadn’t found the words to articulate it. But I wanted framed photos on the wall that documented our love, the years we’ve held each other through joy and death and birth and graduations.

Photos have been difficult since Riley died. So many things have been difficult. The idea of smiling was difficult. The idea of smiling so that someone could capture it in a photo felt paralyzing. How could I smile? How could I feel joyful? I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to see the smile or to see the joyful photos because I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I’m done grieving. I’ll never be done grieving. And if your child hasn’t died, what I’m saying might be a difficult concept to grasp.  

But I still wanted that photo. I realized I wanted it because I want to make a conscious effort to honor the good as well as the pain. The pain is easy. The good is much more challenging, though not less deserving. I would need to let my guard down, though. And I figured a photo of the two of us would be easier than a family photo of our lopsided family where someone will always be missing.

I sent an email to a Sarasota-based photographer. It said, “Our 10th wedding anniversary was 8/3 and I'm turning 50 on 9/15. I have shied away from photos since our 11-year-old son died in 2014. That said, I'm hoping to be able to relax and just celebrate our relationship. And I'm hoping you can capture the love and not the pain that is part of who we are.”

I had to share about Riley because I need to live authentically. To not share it would be to deny all of the grief that now lives in my DNA. And it would be easier if she knew. I wouldn’t need to pretend that I wasn’t struggling. Because I would be, especially if she didn’t know. And in the moment, it would be harder to explain the tears that are always just below the surface.

“It would be an honor to photograph you and your husband, and I thank you for sharing your story with me,” she replied. 

And as soon as I confirmed the date and time of our photo shoot, I began questioning the decision. Anxiety built and I started worrying about dumb stuff, like what I would wear and if I’d look old. 

When the day of the photo shoot finally arrived, we’d already been at our hotel for two nights. We’d had time to swim and nap and see the Barbie movie. That day, we went to lunch and on our way back, we stopped at the Daiquiri Deck and had afternoon slushies. I had two – it was happy hour after all – and it was coffee-flavored and tasted like boozy coffee ice cream. The bartender gave everyone jello shots. I pushed mine to Adam while a football game blasted on the large-screen TV over the bar. 

On our tipsy walk back to the hotel, I dragged my feet through the surf and stumbled and giggled and slurred my words. As Adam napped, I went to the ocean knowing this was my last chance for an afternoon swim. As I watched hundreds of silver fish dart around my legs, I did some math and realized that it must be getting close to her arrival. When I got back to our hotel room, I only had 30 minutes to shower, dry and style my hair, do my makeup. It was probably just as well because I didn’t have time to fret or second-guess my outfit.

When we got to the lobby, she smiled at us. “You guys look amazing,” she said, which I imagine she says to all of her clients. 

“Thank you for coming. I’m really nervous,” I said as my voice broke. 

“It’s going to be okay. We’re going to focus on the love between the two of you,” she said.

“It’s just that pictures are hard for me since my son died,” I said, as I waved my hands in front of my eyes so that tears wouldn’t smear my mascara.

And for the next 40 minutes, she had us hold hands and kiss and walk and stand in the water. Adam spun me around and dipped me and I wanted to weep at the enormous love I feel for him. He has loved me on all of the days. And he “knows that nothing – not dancing or laughing or drinking or orgasms – will change grief. A temporary reprieve is just temporary. Grief is always coursing through my veins. Always will be.”

At the same time, so is love. And now I have these beautiful photos documenting it.

Grief and The Question

The question was already rumbling in my stomach when my thoughts rose into consciousness this morning. I rolled from one side of the bed to the other as the uneasy feeling lingered. My husband had already gone to a meeting. I inched to his side of the bed, rested my head on his warm pillow and waited. Waited for the right answer to appear.

The sun had yet to color the sky, but I could sense movement from the other room. The preschooler was awake, needing the bathroom. “I had a thought that turned into a dream,” she said, as I tucked her back into bed. “What was that?” I asked. “Me getting into the car to take dad to the airport with you.” I smiled at her as I pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “That’s a nice dream,” I said, "but dad isn’t going to the airport for a long time and so you need to go back to sleep." As soon as I got back into my room, she was sitting up, waiting for it to be time to get up for real.

Even as I showered, as I dressed, as I pressed my foot into the gas pedal, I was still wondering about the question. And the answer. You see, I was going to talk to a woman I went to graduate school with that night. She had read all about Riley’s hospitalizations and surgeries when I wrote about him more than a decade ago. I cannot even recall the last time I saw her, probably at graduation. Or shortly after at a party at her house in San Jose. I can’t remember if she was at his memorial. If she was, I certainly haven’t seen her since then.

But when we talk on the phone, I will say hello. She will say hello. Then she will say, “How are you?” And I have no idea how to answer that question, especially when asked by someone I haven’t talked with in so long. Someone who hasn’t witnessed the howling, the blood-shot eyes, the twitchy version of myself that exists when I leave my safe bubble at home, when I venture into the world. The half-eaten version of me, even though I look normal on the outside. Or normal enough. The mom of a 3-year-old.

This woman didn’t witness all the months when I didn’t leave my bed. And after that, when I didn’t shower or comb my hair and wore the same thing for six or seven days in a row because I didn’t know how to get dressed. The woman who cut off all of her hair to look ugly, hoping to match how I felt on the inside. When we talk, this woman will hear the fast-forwarded version of me. The one that can talk on the phone, the woman who has taught creative writing and who founded a literary magazine in grief’s wake. The one that lights up talking about narrative arcs and creating three-dimensional worlds.

And all this thinking about the different versions of me since Riley died in 2014 makes me wonder how I got here. How did the accumulation of time and space from Riley’s death allow me to do those things, to get to the place where I can wonder how I should answer that question. Early on, that innocent question felt so offensive. It doesn’t anymore, and when I’m at the checkout counter, I can say, “Fine, thanks. How are you?” But wondering about it in the context of this pending phone call feels splintered. And strange because I am different from before Riley died. And I am different from the time just after Riley died. And I’m different from before the baby was born. I’m still broken, like a bone fracture that wasn’t set and the malunion impairs function longterm. I’ll always be broken, impaired. But I’m also other things. And I won’t necessarily cry when I talk about Riley.

As I downed a hot cup of tea in the moments between scratching things off the to-do list, I figured it out. When she asks the inevitable question, I will say, “I’ve been wondering how to answer that question all day.” Because it’s the truth.

Grief and After Life

I've watched the first season of After Life on Netflix, and it is probably the most accurate depiction of grief I have seen. My fear for the second season is that things get better and he finds happiness, blah, blah, blah... But hopefully it will be more like real life, that if he does fall in love, he will carry on grieving his dead wife. You can't replace a person with a different person. Because grief would be part of that new love or new marriage or new baby. Things are complicated because grief and love and life are complicated. It's all messy and I'm a mess and my shattered self will always be a mess, even if it doesn't look that way when you see me walking through the grocery store or hiking in the hills with my big, jovial family. Life after a significant loss is like a bone that has healed incorrectly. There will always be pain. Even as I love my other children and love my husband, I will ache for my missing son until I turn to ash. If you decide to watch this, have tissues nearby. And I don't think the trailer does it justice.

Grief and the little sister

It was a year ago last Sunday that they cut her out of me. A silver scar across my abdomen is the proof. I barely acknowledged the pregnancy, so it was equally strange to have a baby cut from my body and handed to me. A daughter, the doctor said. And there she appeared around the paper divider and into my line of vision with a mess of brown hard smeared across her head.

And now she is here already a year old. She lives in our house. She sleeps in Riley’s room. She holds Riley’s things while she nurses in the chair next to his bed. She reaches for the things hanging on his walls when I change her diapers. She is the sixth chair at the dining table, once balanced with four school-aged kids and two adults, only to be completely unbalanced after Riley died. His empty seat. His voice not heard. His laughter gone. And now there is a high chair at the table. It is not a replacement. Only a different kind of chair holding an entirely different child. Even though all of the seats are full, the table is still unbalanced. It will always be unbalanced. And I will always be unbalanced, even though my arms are full right now.

She cannot replace him. I never thought she would, but it was my fear. That somehow holding her and hugging her and nursing her and reading to her and feeding her and bathing her and loving her, that somehow, somehow she would rub away his memory that is seared into my heart -- my Riley-shaped scar. But that isn’t the case. I didn’t know what it would be like, but it isn’t like buying a new gallon of milk to replace the empty gallon of milk or getting a new candle after the wick is gone on the other. I haven’t stopped thinking about him. He is in my thoughts just about every waking minute of every single day. Maybe more intensely now. Now that I spend so much time in his room surrounded by his things. As I remember him at one month old, six months old. As I think of his weight and remember marveling at his tiny body, my first baby born.

Sometimes I call her Riley by mistake. Sometimes I wish she were him and that she would grow at high speed and become the nearly-17-year-old young man that he is supposed to be. But most of the time, I try to focus on appreciating her. It’s a messy, imperfect approach to living in a seemingly impossible world where she is here and he is not. It’s not her fault that her 11-year-old brother died. It’s not her fault that she was born. Yet here we are.

She is goodness in an abyss of pain. So I work on telling myself that at every chance. I want to make sure that I flip to the things that she is, instead of the things that she isn’t. I want to strengthen the neural pathways of love and appreciation for this being that has come into our lives unexpectedly. Here are some of my appreciations: I appreciate that she is an excellent sleeper; I appreciate that she is generally good natured; I appreciate that she will happily sit and play on her own while I make dinner; I appreciate that she will contentedly be in the carrier on my back while I do the things that need doing; I appreciate that she lets me hold her; I appreciate hugging her; I appreciate that sometimes she hugs me back. I appreciate that she continues to wake up even when my mind says that she will not. I appreciate that she didn’t die the night she choked on her dinner and was rushed to the ER. I appreciate feeling her weight and her warmth on my lap and in my arms and across my chest. I appreciate seeing her torso rise and fall on the monitor. I appreciate her tiny hands that reach for mine. I appreciate her eyes that look for me. I appreciate her cries that indicate her aliveness.

When I’m holding her and hugging her, I feel slightly less sad. This doesn’t mean there is less grief. It just means that the grief is being temporarily combated with this 19-pound force of love. It’s an internal battle sometimes to let it feel like love and not betrayal. But I hear his voice saying, “Love her like it’s me because she’s part me because she’s half of you.” It’s flawed 11-year-old logic, but I think what he means when he whispers those words into my head is that it’s okay to love her because he loves her, too. Of course he does. He was an amazing big brother. And she is his tiny sister, who already knows his name and waves when she sees his picture.

Grief and peers wanted

You knew him... You were in the same classes; you played baseball on the same team (or on opposing teams); you played music together; you ate lunch together; you walked the same streets; you played at the same parks. Come remember him with us at the Riley Run (no running required). April 19, 2020. For info or to register: rileyrun1101@gmail.com

Grief and sibling trauma

As we walked home from the frozen yogurt store last week, my son pointed out some Halloween decor at the end of our street that he liked. There were some scruffy black cats and pumpkins and a scarecrow. My neighbors were offering a gentle version of the holiday that's become anything but gentle. When I asked what he liked about them, he basically said that they weren't upsetting like some of the other stuff. When I asked him what he meant, he had a hard time articulating what he was feeling, but it was obvious to me. So I helped him make sense of his feelings as best as I could without putting words in his mouth.

He is also traumatized by the holiday gore lining our streets.

He's seen postoperative pictures of Riley. And he lived with his brother's scars -- the six-inch scar down his torso and the holes from the stitches and the puncture wounds from drainage tubes. All of those scars were familiar to him because that's all he ever knew of his brother who endured six open-heart surgeries during his lifetime. He is familiar with Steristrips holding skin together over wounds. He is familiar with bandages from blood tests. He spent time with his brother in the hospital when he was a baby. He lived with his brother and the aftermath of those long hospitalizations for all eight years that he was lucky enough to have an older brother. So seeing the undead around town with bloody incisions and gaping wounds and bandages is upsetting. He knows what those are in real life. He doesn't want to be reminded of them on the streets of our town. It reminds him of the trauma in his own family. It reminds him of his dead brother. I'm sure he imagines what his brother looked before he died. And afterwards. Those images probably look like the worst of what Halloween offers.

The bloody clown emerging from the gutter is not on display this October. And I have avoided the house near school, the one that incorporated their son's imaginary death in their decor last year. As a result, I don’t know what decorations, if any, they’ve put out this year. But I’m very much on edge as I move through town this time of year. And apparently, I'm not the only one. Still Standing just published a slightly altered version of my piece from last year. Read it here.

Grief and flashbacks

How do you go to bed the night before your child will die? Is he cold? How do you brush and floss? Is he in pain? How many sleeping pills do you take? Does he know that he’s dying? How many minutes beforehand do you take them? Is he scared? Do you look at Facebook before you begin all of this or do you wait until you’re closer to turning off the light? Does he know that you went home? Do you send a message to tell people that your son is actually still alive even though someone has posted that he has died? Does he know you're coming back? In that email, do you tell them that while he is still alive, he probably won’t be this time tomorrow? Does he know the surgery failed? How do you undress and climb onto the cold mattress? Does he have brain damage? How do you sink your head into the pillow and pull the blankets over? Is he angry? How many minutes will it take before the sleeping pills paralyze the limbs so that the shaking stops? Has he heard you screaming? How many more before they punch you into blackness to make the hours pass? Does your screaming scare him? When the alarm knocks the blackness aside, how many seconds will it take before nothingness is replaced with knowing your child will die today? Was it wrong to let the kids see him? How do you push the blankets back? Does he feel trapped? How do you lift your head from the pillow? Has he wanted to die? How do you raise your body from the mattress warmed from the hours of nothingness? Does he blame you? Do you see if anyone has responded to the email that you sent last night? How much is he aware of? Do you do that now or do you wait until you’re ready to turn the light on? Did you ask the right questions? How many minutes before you take the Ativan? Did you choose the wrong hospital? How many anxiety pills do you take? Did you choose the wrong surgeon? As you wonder how many to take, will you also calculate when you’ll be able to take the next dose? How did you let this happen? How long will you stand in the shower before you remember to wash? What should you have done differently? How will you comb out the knots and style your hair? Does he know that he will die today? How will you decide which skirt to wear? Which blouse to wear? Which boots to wear? Did someone make a mistake? Will you brush? Will you eat? How will you walk out the door and get into the car? Will he be relieved? Will you notice all of the other cars rushing to work or to school? Does he know that you want to die and be with him? Will you need to lean on your husband as you walk toward the hospital and into the room where the machines that have been keeping him alive will be turned off? Does he forgive you? Will you recognize the sounds coming from your body? Does he know that you love him? When the machines are quiet, how will you walk away? Does he know that you will always love him?

Grief and WTF

Riley would be 16 ½ today. Instead we’re 18 days away from the fifth anniversary of his death. And to be clear, him being dead for four years, 11 months, and 12 days really is no different from him being dead for five years. The pain of grief is unchanged, really. A handful of days or months really doesn’t change the pain of living without him.

But it’s those shifts in time that change the language I use to talk about how long he’s been dead that make it harder. Even though it’s just a word: one versus three versus four or five. Five is all the fingers on one hand. It's all the toes on one foot. It's the number of points on a starfish. Clock numbers are five minutes apart. A musical staff has five lines. Five can be all of those things. But it can't be the number of years my son has been dead. It can't possibly be the number of years that my lungs have continues to inhale and exhale. It can't be the number of years my heart has continued to beat after his stopped beating. It just can't be.

Five feels like bus coming toward me while I stand on the street and watch. It’s not coming fast. It’s inching toward me. It has been every day since he died. But it’s getting closer now. I could smell the exhaust if the wind were pushing it the right way. I won’t move; I’ll stare it down, just like the others. And when it finally reaches me, the grill will push into my torso until I fall to the ground and it rolls over me. Crushing me all over again. Because this bus isn’t the first vehicle to run me over. That first month. The sixth month. The first year. And so on. But five has a new kind of meaning. Half a decade. I can’t help but say, WHAT THE FUCK.

Grief and certain death

My husband has been asleep on the sofa downstairs for almost two hours. I assume that means he’s died. He’d been to the doctor yesterday and wasn’t feeling well today and he said earlier that the medicine he’d been prescribed made him feel funny, a bit wobbly. So now he’s asleep downstairs trying to recover from the thing that has made him feel unwell. Meanwhile I’m upstairs with our crying newborn daughter. I can’t bring myself to check on him. To watch from a distance to see if his chest rises and falls. To listen for each inhale and exhale that would assure me that his heart and lungs continue to cooperate as they work to circulate blood and oxygen through his veins, to his organs, to his brain.

If I check on him and he is dead, it means that I’ll need to call 911 and there’s no turning back from that. It would be another division in my life separating before from after. It would be another grief so loud shouting into my already sore ears. It would pummel me in new ways and bash my heart already bruised from profound grief. And I’d have to raise our newborn as a single parent. Without my love. My rock. The man who has helped me walk the life as a bereaved parent. So for now, I will stay in denial upstairs with our crying newborn and hope that she falls asleep soon. She’s been crying on and off for hours now.

You see, my 11-year-old son died four years ago. And since then, it feels like everyone will die as soon as they’re out of sight. Before school ended my living biological son was off at Yosemite for the week with his class. The whole 7th grade went. Mothers posted online about how much they missed their kids. They said they wandered from room to room sobbing because they longed for the faces and bodies of their babies. The ones that they grew in their wombs and who became tweens. They imagined their kids would walk in the front door any minute from baseball practice or from having lunch downtown with a friend. I wish I hadn’t read those posts. I wanted to reply: “You know that they’re alive, right? That they’ll be home on Friday?”

And while I felt that way, there was a dichotomy. There could have been a bus accident as they drove back from Yosemite. I was (secretly) convinced that there would be a bus accident. An inferno and twisting metal stealing more children’s lives. There are so many ways for children to die. I’ve learned all about them from my grief group for parents whose children have died. They can choke on their dinners; they can have bowel obstructions; they can have cancer; they can die in car crashes or get hit by cars. They can have rare medical conditions; they can have heart defects, like my son. They can get murdered; they can have concussions; they can get crushed in freak accidents; they can kill themselves.

Please stop crying baby girl.

But when she does finally stop crying and she is quiet in her bed, I worry that she’ll stop breathing. That she’ll choke on spit-up and that she too will be gone from this world. All of my beloveds extinguished because life doesn’t care if I’m a good person or a bad person or a mediocre person. Life doesn't care about what I deserve or don’t deserve in the aftermath of my son’s death. One child’s death doesn't somehow protect me from other people dying, from other tragedies, from my own demise. There will be blood clots and pulmonary embolisms. There will be cancer. Or a car accident. A plane crash. Anaphylactic shock. Blood poisoning. It won’t be pretty. Death never is.

I pull the blanket around her body, quieting her flailing arms and her sad cries. She finally settles in her bassinet, and I listen for the pulling and pushing of air, the pushing and pulling of limbs against cloth. She sighs and my muscles relax for a moment. Glancing outside, I see the brittle leaves, the brown stalks, the wilted branches. I let all of the plants in the garden go -- too many things to keep alive. Too much responsibility. I focus on the ones that matter most.

A sneeze followed by creaks on the steps lets me know that my husband hasn’t died. Not today, anyway. He walks into our room and I push my index finger to my lips before pointing to the baby. I sit near her and wait for her to wake, wait for her to cry again, her sounds indicating her aliveness.

And then the cycle will begin again.

Grief and because of...

After Riley died, there was only what I could describe as a primal urge to be pregnant. I imagined it was nature’s way of making sure that our species continued thousands of years ago when children dying was normal because nature was harsh, predators were abundant, and accidents were prevalent. If that urge didn’t exist, I suspect our species would have become extinct.

I wanted it so badly. My mind wanted it. My heart wanted it. My arms longed for it. I wanted to grow a baby and keep it alive with my body. And we tried. After months of negative pregnancy tests, the threshold of what we'd try kept moving. There were intrauterine inseminations, hormone injections, egg retrievals and finally in vitro fertilizations. With those, there’d been three pregnancies and three miscarriages. My body felt broken and my heart was exhausted from the emotional ups and downs. We finally gave up. Letting go was its own kind of grief.

And in letting go, we gave ourselves permission to dream of the not-so-distant future when our youngest goes to college. We began imagining ourselves in Europe or Central America with Adam as the water-sports instructor and me leading workshops for enthusiastic writers. I wrote about it in the last issue of Six Hens. But as it turns out, if you don’t use birth control -- even after many failed pregnancies -- one can get pregnant the old-fashioned way. Even if you’re pushing 45.

Because of those pregnancies and losses, I was six months along before I told anyone. It took me that long to start believing that the pregnancy would result in an actual baby because I knew that a positive pregnancy test didn’t guarantee a baby would be born alive. 

It also took me that long because I was facing an intense internal battle. 

In the three years of successes and failures, it never occurred to me how a pregnancy while in grief would feel. I had not been pregnant long enough to be faced with those thoughts. And how it felt was, well, complicated. How could I possibly be excited for a baby that was only possible because Riley died?

As a result, my pregnancy was emotionally complex and I'd done my best to hide myself and my changing body from the world -- under lots of layers. Fortunately it was winter, so layers were easy. As I quietly shared this news with my closest friends, I cautioned them that it would never be a congratulations kind of pregnancy. And just as it would never be a congratulations kind of pregnancy, it would never be a congratulations kind of birth. Even though births are congratulatory.

You see, I can't get past the reality that if Riley were alive I would never have been pregnant in the first place. And therefore I was pregnant only because Riley died. It's flawed logic, but when someone was excited about my pregnancy, it felt like they must be celebrating the fact that Riley died because the current reality didn’t exist without the other. Even though the intellectual side of my brain knows no one is celebrating Riley’s death, the emotional side of my brain finds it difficult to internalize that.

Ultimately, I do take comfort in the fact that Riley would have been enormously proud to have a new sibling. He’d proven over the years to be an excellent big brother, big cousin, and big friend to our neighborhood children. I imagine it will get easier over time to accept the pregnancy was because of Riley, not instead of. Because of how much I love him. Because of how much I miss holding him. Because of how I have so much love to give. Because of how I long for things to be different for him, for our family.

So, with trepidation, we introduce Riley’s new sister who was born on March 8, 2019. Her first name is Sage. Her middle names are Lois Riley. Lois is in honor of my mom’s sister who died at 4; Riley is for her big brother, who she will love, but never meet. Be proud, big brother. I can sometimes see you in her tiny face.  

Grief and wanting to die

My two boys

In the last four years, I’ve met many bereaved parents. One of the commonalities is that the desire to live vanishes after your child dies. It doesn’t matter if you have other, living children (I do). It doesn’t matter if you have a loving spouse (I do). Nothing matters. Because the worst thing has happened. And all you want to do is go wherever your dead child has gone. Which is away from this planet. Away from the pain, a screaming, invisible pain that permeates into every cell in your body. Because nothing matters at all. I wrote about my death wish in the latest issue of Six Hens.

Grief and Halloween

As the van rolls down the winding street, it passes a torso climbing from the gutter. The torso is topped with a head, its face painted white with exaggerated clown lips and topped with a shock of red hair. It's holding a red balloon in an outstretched arm. In the adjacent driveway, a skeleton straddles a motorcycle.

As I head to the library, the grocery store, the Post Office, a row of skeletons lines our neighbor’s front yard across the street from the elementary school. As I drive around town, there are bloody severed limbs on porches. There are partially decomposed bodies dangling from trees. There are bloody mummies. There are blood-splattered tools.

It’s gruesome. Horrible. Triggering. I’ve seen enough bloody bandages, exposed bone, pools of blood, and thick black stitches holding together skin. I’ve seen blood-splattered floors. Blood on the machines designed to hold the bloody fluid pouring from tubes leaving my son’s body. I see these things when I close my eyes. When I’m trying to fall asleep at night. When I have another nightmare. And now they are everywhere during the day. When my eyes are open.

When did blood and death and gore become mainstream entertainment gleefully displayed in front yards? I don’t know how to avoid it because it’s everywhere. I hate this time of year. I hate this holiday. For a society that tends to avoid talking about death and dying and grief, we sure love to slap it around for fun at the end of October.

Should I put my son’s ashes on display in the front yard? Should I scatter his collection of lost childhood teeth on our sidewalk? Or maybe put them in a small bowl next to our mailbox? Should I hang his t-shirts on a clothesline across the front porch? I suspect that would be in poor taste. Because actual death is offensive.

In the meantime, if you pass the middle school in my town, you’ll see a yard with a large decorative -- if that’s what you call it -- tombstone at the end of their driveway. In large letters across the front, it says “RIP Max.” Max is their son’s name. Is it fun to imagine that your child has died? Even when you know a family whose son has actually died? When you've been to their house and talked about grief? Should I put a tombstone in my front yard with Riley’s name on it? Would it still be funny?

I miss when Halloween was about pumpkins and kids dressed as firefighters or dinosaurs or cows and bunnies or Mario and Luigi. And the gore was restricted to rentals from the local video store.

Seriously people, WTF?

Grief and chances

Riley - perfect at 11

Two of the last three nights I’ve had Riley dreams. When I wake, instead of aching at the realization that my son is dead, I have a moment to reflect on the beautiful make believe world my mind let me wander in for a bit. Even though -- as dreams are -- they are nonsensical as they unfold in unlikely places in unlikely situations, they are as close to bliss as I get.

Two nights ago, I was in an imaginary physical therapy nursing homes on the east coast owned by friends from college. It was illogical that I’d traveled across the country with several bereaved families, my ex-husband, his wife, and our family dog. But that’s exactly what had happened. And while we were there, my dog injured herself in the rain and my physical therapy friends used their expert skills to rehabilitate her while all of us stayed indefinitely at their imaginary nursing home, waiting for her dog body to heal. Even though it was nonsensical and illogical, it was also fantastical when an inviting light beam shone from the ceiling. It was a magical spotlight and when I was under its brilliant beam, Riley was there. Alive, communicative as ever. Three-dimensional. And still 11 years old. His brother was eager to have a turn.

Eleven will always be my favorite age. Riley was perfect. Perfectly curious about maps. Perfectly aware of the importance of family and telling people that he loved them. Perfectly excited about learning and reading. Perfectly content with always having vanilla ice cream. Perfectly sized for sitting in my lap. And perfectly loud in my household with four children, a dog, and a bunch of chickens. It was a heartbreaking moment earlier this year when I realized that no one in my house would ever be 11 years old again. I wrote about it here in the Fall issue of Six Hens.