Doing Grief

I thought that my insanely busy day yesterday was going to be what gave me a headache.  But it turned out to be the sobbing-my-eyes-out ugly cry over Beckett on the way home last night that did me in.

Here is the little secret about how a lot of us bereaved parents are “doing it.”  You know, the infamous statement served to us repeatedly.  “I don’t know how you do it.”  My experience is that we wake up and we look at our day.  We see all of the good, the bad, and the things that need accomplishing.  And yes, we see our children who have died as consciously as we see the physically present ones.  But usually, the passed child is the most quiet part of all of the things at the forefront of needing attention.  So you make breakfast and you talk to your family about the day ahead and you get dressed and you brush your teeth and you go about your business.  And it isn’t fake or a lie or any of those terrible things.  Often, I feel a privilege in living my day.  It isn’t that my life isn’t as lively as before.  It’s that it’s sadder.

I “do it” because I know that living my life is great.  And because living my life and living my grief are not one and the same.  Beckett and an active consideration of him is constant, but my grief is not.  My grief I soothe and protect and placate until in the most surprising of moments it comes to life.  Like when I am driving to pick Moira up from school, or walking the dog, or sitting alone at work at the end of shift.  And then I do that.  I do grief.  And it’s ugly and hard.  It’s heaving and gasping and sobbing.  It’s raw and basic and maternal.  It comes and it doesn’t stop until it is ready to stop because it has to happen.  It’s a part of being Beckett’s mom, the double edged sword of the deep love I have for my child.  To really feel Beckett, I have to sometimes acknowledge the humming of my grief and let it smash hard and loud for a time.

I shattered last night.  This descent in to grief was particularly long.  I did things I knew would draw it out.  I was watching old video’s of him.  Pictures are one thing but video’s are another.  Watching him move.  Watching the mannerisms I loved.  There is a reason “eyelashes” made it in to my blogs title.  Beckett’s eyes were a masterpiece.  Looking at him blink and grimace and relax against me in captured film.  And so I cried over my long-lashed, lost sweetheart and then I cried some more.  I just couldn’t stop.  I lay my head on my arms and wept openly over them.  And then I wailed sad songs on my drive home.  It wasn’t fun.  It hurt and it’s hurting now.  But it’s the price I have to pay to experience my son, and that’s something I am not willing to give up.  Grief must be allowed an opportunity to speak.  It is an aching born of love.

It is one of the purest loves, grief.  Because to grieve someone is to love them with no hope of response or earthly fruition.  I don’t have a future with Beckett in this lifetime to build.  I am left to replay the memories I have, and often times those aren’t kind either.  But I do it anyway, because love doesn’t make sense. Love is what I have for Beckett.  Relentless, senseless, and breathtaking.  Sometimes it breaks me.  But ironically it is a part of what makes me whole too.  So I will keep “doing it.”  Doing grief.  And loving my son.