Sometimes the sun isn’t enough..

Grief is such a multi-dimensional beast. Just when you think you’ve made progress in the healing it creeps up on you like a sword out of the dark, cutting you off at the knees and leaving you gasping for breath. Sometimes it’s gentler like a bitter cold breeze on a sunny day that catches you unprepared as you step at the door to start your day. They say that grief can leave a hole in your heart that never quite heals even after years of “getting over it”. Getting over it, that’s kind of a laugh, really I don’t know that you every truly get over some losses. I do think you get better at dealing with them, that your day to day gets easier to bear and that your brain doesn’t chew on the details every second of the day like it use too.

My grief has become a double edged sword to me at this time. We are down near the ocean in Florida. I love being around the ocean, the older I get the more necessary it seems to be for me to get near the ocean a few times a year. It seems to re-balance me and help me release stress. But the ocean also brings my grief bubbling to the surface. You see the son I lost almost twelve years ago loved the ocean. I’m sure if he had survived his teen years, he would have found a way to be around the ocean more. So this time that I need so much also brings much reflection to me. The sharpness of the disappointment that I will never see him become that amazing man that I was catching glimpses of in his teenage self. The bitterness of the ultimate parenting fail (I know others may take offense at this, please don’t, it’s just how I feel) of losing a child to suicide. And yes, I know that I am not to blame for all of it on that level, but it’s hard not to do the what ifs and the if onlys as a parent. When we are near the ocean Travis is always on my mind, unresolved issues and just the missing him as a being in my life is more poignant with the salt air. It’s not that I don’t think of him pretty much every day at home, it’s just that here in the clearance of home chaos the thoughts are crystal clear.

Sometimes I think grief is a plant that wraps around your heart, sometimes cactus like with sharpness that pokes with needles of pain, sometimes dense vines that have a strangle hold so tight on your heart it can hardly keep beating, and sometimes it’s just there, over shadowing your heart making you always aware in a minute it can stab or strangle out of the blue.

Grief, I know that there are thousands of types of grief, and that each people grieves differently. The stages of grief so adamantly reported are all just suggestions on how someone may grieve, because every person is unique and has there own personal way of dealing with it. Though someone who has been through loss can empathize, I really don’t think anyone quite understands the level, the moment, or the heart of another’s grief even if they are suffering that same type of loss. But to all who are suffering or suffered a loss, whether a loss of a loved one or another loss… I am truly sorry and my heart is heavy for you. As for me as I approach what would have been my son’s 28^th birthday in April, I keep moving and working in hopes that some day I’ll sit on the beach and just enjoy his company without all the damning sorrow, if onlys and what ifs.