Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2007. While in Florida, we took Mattie for a fan boat ride. It was a great adventure where we got to see alligators up close and personal. This was NOT the boat we went on. Instead, this was a retired fan boat that kids could go on and explore. Naturally Mattie went right on and as you can see we snapped a photo of him. Mattie LOVED boats and he would always tell us that he was going to save all his money to buy a boat. My joke with him was he was going to buy a remote controlled toy boat, and of course Mattie always corrected me. He did not want a toy boat, he wanted a REAL boat and he wanted to be its captain.
Quote of the day: Shock is a merciful condition. It allows you to get through disaster with a necessary distance between you and your feelings. ~ Lisa Kleypas
I received an email from my friend Heidi today. In the email was a link to the article entitled, The emperor has no clothes: The reality of the grief. It is an article written by a mom who lost her 11 year old son to cancer. I included the link below if you would like to read this short piece for yourself.
The article is short, but very MEANINGFUL, powerful, and absolutely accurate. In fact, I have used many of the author's same words to describe my own feelings. Two lines and one paragraph in her article absolutely jumped off the computer screen at me. The two grief statements that are so impactful are:
- It never gets easier, it just gets different.
- I take it everywhere I go.
Losing a child to cancer in a way is a lifetime sentence for a parent. However, there was no crime committed and and yet we are being punished for doing nothing wrong, other than loving our child. With each year living with grief, the author is exactly right...... grief gets different. It feels different, looks different, and changes. But we shouldn't equate changing and different to it getting BETTER! Which is how our society views grief!!! Grief does indeed go everywhere we go, and I have tested that theory. It goes with us on vacation, on airplanes, to different continents, and is ever present at home and at work!
Within the article is the following paragraph:
Like people do, each year grief changes and takes on a new form. I think sometimes it was easier to deal with when the shock and numbness hadn't worn off: so much was hidden in the dense fog of it, as if you can only bare to see just two feet in front of your face. In a way, that kind of grief had a protective quality to it—shielding you from the size of it all, allowing you to take it on only a bit at a time. Without the fog this new grief cries loudly, “The Emperor has no clothes,” as it points out how exposed and unprotected I feel in the face of it.
I never used the terminology.... the emperor has no clothes, but yet Jen and I are speaking the SAME language. She is talking about a fog, numbness, and the protective factor such qualities produce. I would say in the first year of grieving Mattie's death, I was living in a fog and was very numb. Yet when the numbness started to fade, that is when true grieving began to happen and unfortunately have been living in this evolving grief journey ever since. Everyone thinks and truly believes that the first year of grief is the WORST. That parents need support during this time. Certainly they do, but I would beg to say that it is all subsequent years following the loss that truly become traumatic. They are traumatic because protective layers get stripped away and by that point, as our defenses come down, social support also dwindles. Well then what? Well this sets up the dynamic for a perfect storm.... a recipe for some let downs, hard times, and an overall questioning about life and if one has a future on this earth. My joke after the first year, while in my second year was.... I wish it was the first year again, how I long for the days of feeling numb and being in a fog. Because once it lifts, all I can say is WOW! I suppose it is equivalent to Jen's analogy, in the sense that it feels like you are walking around in public with NO CLOTHES ON!
What is the answer to the Emperor has no clothes on?! I have no answers because for me losing Mattie changed me at the core. So you can put whatever clothes you would like on me, but the core doesn't change, and if it does change, then what level of grief and guilt does that also produce for a parent? Does that mean our child has been forgotten, does that mean our child is not central to our universe any more? Or what?! All I know is I live in a warped reality in which I will always be the mom of a seven year old child, in which Mattie is always in kindergarten, despite seeing his friends progressing through sixth grade now.
The emperor has no clothes: The reality of the grief. ~ Jen Lynn Arnold
No comments:
Post a Comment