At Hanukkah, we celebrate the miracle of a light that kept burning long after its fuel was gone. Just like the light in the Temple long ago, the lights of our children will burn on and on.
Each night, I light Andy’s candle with the shamash before lighting the candles of the menorah. The glow of those candles is so soft and beautiful. It reminds me of two very different, but equally sacred miracles.
I’m comfortable in the medium of writing. I like being surrounded by old books, obscure theories, and poems preserved for hundreds of years. Journalling is something I’ve done since my early childhood, and even though we’re all mostly communicating through email these days, I still enjoy sending a hand-written letter on old fashioned stationary sometimes. When it comes to communicating with my son, however, words fail me.
Like most people, I needed time to incorporate my parents’ deaths in to my normal life. There was so much left to say. My therapist at the time suggested I write goodbye letters to them, saying all of those things I needed to say and literally writing farewell notes to them. That activity, while incredibly difficult, really helped. In terms of Andy’s death, however, that thought is absolutely appalling. I don’t want to write a final goodbye to him, nor do I have to. Someone recently suggested to me that writing is how I can communicate with my son now. She said the time he gave to me and the memories he left behind are his gifts to me. My writing to him is my answer.
Last night was my first attempt at writing to Andy. It was a strange experience, in all honesty, and terribly frightening at first. I’d felt all day as if my grief would explode out of me in a torrent, but I’d kept those feelings to myself. In writing to Andy, I could tell him how much I miss him and how much I wish he was here. I could offer my comfort to him, and my hope that he is safe and happy in whatever form he’s taken now. The fear and pain of the day shifted somewhat into comfort. Writing to Andy will never be enough. It will never take the place of hearing his little voice through the telephone or spending time with him at my side, but it’s what we share now. He can talk to me in memories, and I can respond with my words, flowing across the pages, attempting to bridge this incomprehensible void between us.
Today, for the first time since Andy died, I feel like I truly took a step forward. Quite alot in my life has changed since then, even in just a practical sense. I’ve finished a degree, set out on a career path, changed that career path, and started down another road. I’ve moved, more than once, and generally went about in chaos. It’s been by far the hardest climb I’ve ever made, but for today at least, I don’t feel as though I’m being sucked in to an endless abyss. Today seems like the closest thing to life I’ll achieve without Andy. It’s more like an *actual* life, instead of the pseudo-existence I’ve had for a while now.
I’m trying (and sometimes failing) not to beat myself up about considering choosing life over existence. My mind falls back to the unfairness of Andy’s having died so young while I’ve had more time and continue on. Every single step forward I take reminds me of the steps he won’t have the chance to take. As I set out on this new career path, I wonder what path he would have taken. I wonder millions of things, and those thoughts keep me up most nights. Andy will never have an adult life. He won’t be able to make these decisions. I try to remind myself that it is my *obligation* to live my life to the fullest. Maybe it’s my attempt at making up for the time he lost. Maybe it’s that need to live *for* him. I know those things are impossible, but I want to make up, somehow, for the world’s losing this beautiful little person. I just want to live a life that would make him proud. Funny how, when the parent buries the child, the parent takes on the desires typically felt by the child. Most children want their parents to be proud of them. Now, I want my son to be proud of me. That sounds incredibly selfish said aloud, but it’s just how I’m feeling at the moment. He got so little time here. It’s the least I can do to make sure I use the rest of my time well. That will never balance out the unfairness, but it seems to help.
So, for now, I can see the sun. I can feel the fog lifting, even if only slightly, for the first time in these two and a half years. The weight of my grief is still there and will always be. For now, though, it’s a bit less intense. I’m so very grateful for that.
It’s my favorite season. Everything starts to bloom once again, and the sky actually looks blue instead of wintry grey. The breeze gets warmer. Everything seems to offer hope. Spring is getting easier for me now, but it still hurts right at the beginning. My mother’s death happened in mid-spring, and there’s still a certain quality of light just before sunrise that makes me think of her and feel a little sad.
A world without spring is the perfect metaphor for life after you’ve lost a child. That new beginning has been cut short. It’s so unnatural, just like winter’s stretching all the way to summer would be. My grief takes me from the deadly cold of winter to the scorching heat of summer. Autumn is merely a forecast for the dying away of beauty that follows. As I’ve said in nearly every post it seems, there is still beauty in the world, eventually. It’s just never quite the same, never quite as beautiful.
If I could say anything to the bereaved parents who read this blog, it would be not to give up on spring entirely. In my life, I no longer experience that same feeling of beauty and hope that came along with spring. Even the thought of young flowers in bloom seems somewhat cruel. How can you enjoy being surrounded by the newly-born when your child has been snatched away? Still, I can recognize the peace and innocence of spring and am grateful for at least an illusion of hope.
Spring represents the re-birth of earth after winter, but the flowers that bloom are not the same ones that bloomed the year before. The newborn animals are not the babies of last year. Everything is reborn. It’s just reborn differently. My life is becoming more like that as time passes. There is rebirth from the winter of grief after losing a child, but the life I had before is gone. The innocence is shattered, and the difficult but necessary task is to find beauty in what remains.
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