Loosing your son or daughter. When life is normal, going along how it should be. Friends, family holidays. Work. Relationships. You don’t realize. But you are on the crest of a wave. Surfing and looking round thinking, yep !!! I’ve got this.
Then it happens. You take a swan dive off the cliff. And land at the bottom, on the beach. Not a nice beach a beach nobody can get to. You lay there totally winded. Helpless. Devoid of life. Looking up at the top of the cliff. Up there, everything is going on. Life, love, work, relationship’s, shopping,tele. Schools, cars, the whole shebang. Yet your are helpless on your back. At the bottom of a cliff. You can see it all. But you are so far away from it, you can’t join in. You lay there trying to move your limbs. Trying to wink or sigh , just anything to let them know at the top you are still alive. But it doesn’t work. You are helpless. You know what you need to do but you just can’t do it. Everyone else is getting on with it except you. You are helpless. You try to keep your head above the waves but every now and then you unexpectedly take in a big gulp of water, you weren’t ready for it. You can’t deal with it. The cliff seems further and further away. You can’t get off your back. You lay there totally lost hurt and totally confused. Somehow, nobody tells you how, but somehow you have to find a way. No body else will tell you how it’s done, you have to do it. You have to find a way to carry on. Only then will you feel that it was the right thing to do. You have to carry on living for them,. There is nothing else !!! Just that!!!, you have to keep going, for THEM !!!
Jim,
I usually feel a sense of hope after reading one of your posts but have to say this post has left me feeling disturbed and worried . I think a lot of us look to you for guidance…a way to crawl from our black holes into the light but it frightens me that maybe that isn’t going to happen.
I know life will never be the same without Andrew. I only had to drive along the road today looking at the little white clouds scudding across the blue sky to realise that even something I’d normally find beautiful fills me with an overwhelming sadness. I just sobbed. Andrew wasn’t driving home in his work van looking at that blue sky, planning to go for a leisurely stroll with his beloved dog . No…Andrew is in a wooden casket in my living room.
How can I accept this?? To never see him again…not just for a year , 10 years…NEVER…EVER!!
So that cliff might as well be the north face of the Eiger as far as I’m concerned.
Maybe I’ll have to crawl into the sea and try swimming to land further along the beach. Who knows?
I don’t want to give up on the rest of my life. I know Andrew wouldn’t want me to but it’s so bloody hard. Hopefully time really will help me…I know 11 weeks is nothing . I’m getting better at tolerating people…I can sit with my mother now without feeling like jumping up and walking out. I smile and listen to her talking about her new carpet etc…although I’m not remotely interested.
Actually perhaps I am healing a little bit…after all I DID notice the blue sky and I DID think it was beautiful
I’m waffling now. I’m just struggling…as we all are…to accept this horrible new reality.
For now I’ll carry on having a few drinks until I’m tired enough for bed. Then I’ll sleep for as long as my troubled brain allows. If I wake up in the night, anxious and trying to ward off those disturbing thoughts of the new reality I listen to Johnny Morris reading The Just So Stories. CRAZY?? Just a little bit but it works for me. If nothing else I know how the camel got his hump etc, etc.
I think he gave it to me to carry!!
Sorry to sound so miserable
Wishing you all a better day tomorrow
Love and hugs Sue xxxxx
Sue. So sorry to be cast a big downer on you, not my intention. Was just trying to say how devastating it can be. You are at very early days. Sorry if I’ve caused offense
You haven’t at all Jim.
Your posts are always amazing, honest and caring. You just took me by surprise in a way. Just made me think about what the future has in store for all us grieving parents and it frightened me. But…you’re right…we have to go on somehow and live our lives as best we can for our lost children. They would want us to.
Love and hugs Sue xxxxx
ps…cheers ( mine’s a gin and diet coke)
Hi jim and sue
Mines a vodka and coke .like jim says sue .11 weeks your amazing that your even on here talking .this rollercoaster is bad . I have a good day but the sadness always there lurking . We all have this new normal without our boys . It dont make sense you go jome and you think they be there . I have so much i want to say to my sam . But we cant
What jims saying is we have no choice but to live for them .our boys would want us to live . Its hard to be brave baby steps sue your amazing . Take care jim
Hello Sue, Zoe and Jim
We all try to cope however we can but sometimes it’s hard to avoid the black holes. And these awful days / dates that we can’t help counting. 12 weeks today since Katherine left us.
I don’t think you are waffling at all. Those things you mentioned are a tiny chink of light. Miles away and may not last long. A couple of minutes maybe. I’m getting some things like that and getting routines like your Just So Stories in the night. I listen to audiobooks and the routine and a calm voice help me to drop off or stay awake feeling a bit less alone. A glimmer of light in the dark is a start. Sending you hugs
Thank you Nell,
It’s the little things that help get through another day. I cling to the hope…after reading other posts…that in time the bright moments of each day will outnumber the dark moments. Never completely banishing them but making the sad moments easier to live with.
Our grief is still so raw…it must ease a little with time.
Love Sue xxxxx
