Less than 48 hours after I last held my son, I sat down in a funeral home to discuss our final decisions about his physical remains.  I was anxious.  And tired.  And upset.  But it had to be done and I had lived a long eight months of doing things that had to be done so I sat still and resolved.  The gentleman who came in to help us was very thoughtful and kind.  He seemed compassionate and had perfectly appropriate things to say.  I was acutely perceptive and raw in the initial trauma and I remember thinking over and over that he was the death salesman.  That each client he ever handled had to be handled this same way.  That this was a strange but necessary job that existed constantly and though I had never even thought about, I was surprised at its efficiency.  My mind was blown, which was saying nothing on a day when my mind was blowing up in every second of every minute.  It was calculating everything happening to me and seeing the universe in a completely new way.  I would say that the way my mind operates today is more similar to this moment in the funeral home than all the moments before it.

I sat still and listened to what needed to be done and when.  He excused himself to go get the contract relating to the services to be rendered and the items purchased, which are usually comfortable things to discuss, but not when your loved ones body is the centerpiece of it all.  When I wasn’t thinking about the guy selling me corpse needs, I was wondering if Beckett’s body was in the building.  We had been told at the beginning of our visit that his body was “in transit” from the hospital to the facility.  That fact left a recurring spasm in my stomach throughout the entire experience.  I was thinking about my precious son and about wanting to be with his remains, yet at the same time not wanting to.  I was engulfed with a sense of loneliness that his body was unattended by me.  But I also felt a powerful sense that his remains were nothing of what he truly was, and that the boy I loved could not be found there.

To cope with the death of my child, there was a certain amount of survival instinct at play.  And to survive in those first few weeks, I had to first and foremost appease my own psyche.  I knew that Beckett was gone and that to see him this long after death had taken him would upset me, so I took care of myself and chose not to look at him there before his cremation.  I don’t regret it.  I had spent my days of Beckett’s life constantly considering what it would be like to be without him, and for that, I had valued each day with my son.  I had taken countless opportunities to memorialize precious features and moments in my heart.  A long knowledge to expect something like this had given me more instances than most have to make my peace with the moment when goodbye came.  That moment occurred on the night of his death, and it truly was the end.  So I did not intend to see his body, and I had come with business to attend to.  The death salesman returned with a simple black folder in his hand.  On the front was a sticker that looked like it was printed from a label maker.  It read “Beckett Goll.”

I will never forget that folder.  If I was experiencing spasms at thinking about the location of his body, it was nothing to the jolt I received staring at the file created in a funeral home for my son.  I can only describe it as “fight or flight” in its severity.  The fight was over so it was time for flight.  Remember, it felt like survival at this point, and it didn’t feel like I could survive being in the presence of this folder.  My eyes filled with tears as my body physically fought what was happening to me.  But seeing Beckett’s name on the outside of it wasn’t even the worst yet to come.  Painstakingly filling out the information relating to his personhood status in our world was like an out of body experience.  When a parent is writing down the name they chose with care and tenderness in acknowledgment of the recipients failed body nearby, it is a moment that crushes the spirit.  To this day, when I have to write Beckett’s name on something associated with his death, or even just reading it on something new, I feel a blow to the stomach.  That’s my baby.  And this wasn’t what I wanted for him.

Usually my posts have a more positive tone attached for inspiration.  But today’s does not.  Because I acknowledge that what has happened to me is traumatic, and cannot be solved.  I will not seek a grand solution when I can instead take up small victories each day, making them mine and making my way.  The human experience is for all of us traumatic.  We will each of us be confined in ways by trauma, both as it occurs, and in everything that happens beyond it.  I won’t apologize for my ordeal and I won’t ignore it.  What an existence we could have if we weren’t consumed with controlling each other, but instead with honoring each other as separate beings trying their best.  I wear my strength beside this weakness in equal measure and I would not submit it in exchange for any possible armor to instead carry on my heart.  This weakness was paid for with the fragile life of my child and I know better than anyone else possibly could that it cannot be returned.  While lessons like these are not lovely, they are what was received in result of his death, so I will tend to them with heaviness and recognition.  I am broken just like my boy was.  Still, our love is anything but.