Living With Grief
For almost 12 months I watched my young son die from a rare terminal illness for which there was no cure. Keeping him alive was a full-time job I gladly took on and I would have been blessed to have done it forever. It was difficult. Yes. It was the most difficult thing I’d ever had to do. But it was also worth every heartbreaking soul piercing moment.
For almost 12 months I watched my son, Richie, deteriorate. I saw the signs that he was going to leave me unless there was a miracle. He got weaker and weaker and sicker and sicker and while it was unbelievably hard to watch, every moment he was here with me was a blessing.
Then after all the night vigils and hoping and praying and loving, he was gone. I was there at his side, looking into his crystal blue eyes as the light in them flickered then was gone. Extinguished by his cruel death. How could I go on? I didn’t know that answer or if I even could breathe another breath without him. I certainly didn’t want to.
As I grieved for what could have been, what really was and the future without my son, missing him became my full-time 24/7 life. My painstakingly awful, beautiful job. Memories, so many memories flooded back and forth into my heart and soul. So this is what grief is like, I thought. Missing someone so much that you’d rather die than live without them. Yes, this is grief.
Truth be told, I wanted to be in the ground next to him — in Heaven with him. I laid face down over his grave and cried out to God, asking Him to let me die because it was too hard to live. But I didn’t. Dying would have been an easier way to deal with my son’s death. But I didn’t.
Finally, many months later, I decided if I was going to truly go on I would have to make some choices to live, not just simply be alive. That didn’t include forgetting my son or the awful heartbreaking, beautiful things leading up to his death. It simply meant that instead of allowing grief to be my whole life, I had to slowly relegate it to being part of my life. A place I would visit but not live in.
Each time I felt a surge of grief, I would ride that current but not allow the undertow to pull me completely down to the depths of grief. I would cry out to God, keep my head above the waves, and not let them overtake me — keeping afloat in the warm memories of the good times in my son’s life. I would recall his smile or some other lovely part of him and replace the cruel, cold, awful memories with warm and happy ones. I would be thankful for his life. I would celebrate his life instead of forever clinging to his death.
I allowed myself — gave myself permission — to smile, to laugh, to be happy. To live again. But I have also since found there is a forever tinge of sadness when a soul is pierced so deeply. A scar remains and will never leave — a fleeting flicker that can be seen sometimes in the eyes of those who grieve deeply. But the hurt eventually becomes a secondary reflex and not a first. If I allow it to be so. And I had to allow it to be so to move on.
Most of all, I am now able to be happy and thankful and grateful my son was here at all. Because I wouldn’t have wanted to miss him in my life regardless of the pain of losing him. And, instead of being angry with God for my son’s death, I thank God my Richie was here. Even if only for a short, awful, heartbreaking, beautiful season.
Jackie Deems copyright 2023
