Losing a child is hideous and...
Updated: Oct 31
I had a fear of losing a child my whole life. I think I knew. Many others have said they had a knowing but they called it fear. I had a special place in my heart for those who had lost children. I even had a little group of Mama's who had lost children at my office. I love them because they all rallied around me when my son left. I remember saying often I would be in the club one day.
But honestly nothing prepared me for the pain of having my son go on before me. I remember saying it is like I am birthing him back to God. The pain is like a million labor pains at once. Holy shit it hurt so bad. The grief is physical as well as what we would expect from grief. It knocked me on my ass. I lost my mind. Quite literally for a couple of years.
Our minds are not prepared for that. Yet it protects us from taking it all in at once.
I am going to talk about a perspective I have about life, our journey here and people coming and going. Do not get me wrong I miss my son so much there are no words. And in the moments when the fog clears and I know it is real I am flattened.. But I know that his life was exactly as it was meant to be.
What I have learned from many souls who have moved on is that we each come here for OUR journey. We go from birth to "death" and many people cross our paths. They are not ours. Even our children ore not ours. They have a path unique to them. The problem is the we assume that our children are ours and that their journey will go on past ours. We miss out on so much assuming that tomorrow will come. We take for granted that they will always be here. There are no promises. The souls of our children have a path, journey and a life of their own. It is not about us. It is simply their life.
For me my son told me when he was little he was not going to be here long. He was 3 or 4 when he said it. I remember saying you better be here you little shit. There was more to that conversation but it all flooded in when he left. I have had this inner struggle, so to speak, with what I know about soul journeys and life and what I want as a human being and mother to a child I loved more than myself.
I call them short timers. Short timers LIVE. And Sammy LIVED. He was feisty, kind, ferocious, funny, crazy, unapologetic and he loved from the depths of his being. He knew he only had so much time and he did what he chose. I know others have a hard time with that but it is truth for me and him for that matter.
Back to short timers. All of the people who I know that have had their children go on before them experienced the same. They were blessed with this wonderful bright light of a being who lived life with a purpose. They were caring and kind. A gift that none of us would trade even knowing they would not stay long. The depths of pain are exactly the depths of the love they brought to our lives.
Don't get me wrong .. all of my children are amazing gifts I could not have imagined they would be. And they say the same.
I remember that I felt so whole when I carried him in my belly. And I knew instantly even though he was a huge surprise that I was pregnant. There is just something about them. They are like the young rattle snake. They know nothing but giving it all. And they never seem to take on the boundaries the rest of us succumb to.
Yes losing my son or should I say having far much less time than I would like was hideous. And I was blessed with 26 years of amazingness. We need to remember that nothing is promised. That today is all there is. And to enjoy and savor every gift. And to do what is meaningful to us. Life is short in truth. So live as if this is your last moment, meal, day etc. So if someone goes on before you there will be amazing memories to balance the pain.
And above all know that it is the wish of all of them that we live as we would want them to if we left first.
We can do this.
