Down The Road...

Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,

I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,

I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,

I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.*

This coming December, I will be five years down the road, five years since Skye died. For the first four, I was crazy. There is no better set of words to describe how I felt and how I acted: I was just crazy.

I ranted and raved over the slightest thing. I lashed out at the very people who were sincerely trying to understand and to help. My health suffered. I lost interest in life. I forgot things. I couldn’t write. I would rarely speak. My mind would settle into a neutral resting state, not thinking about anything in particular.

And that was on a good day…

Well, I will always be ‘a little crazy’ because being the mother of a dead child is crazy. It is. It is. And I think once we, as bereaved parents, come to that realization and accept ourselves as being perpetually ‘a little bit crazy', we can begin to regain some surer footing in this life.

Life holds a different meaning for me now than once it did. For my part, I have no other children. I will never have grandchildren. There is a space within me that will ever remain unfilled. I feel this core of loss always… but now I know I can carry it.

Because I am.

I am writing again. I stay in closer touch with my friends than I did before. I took up photography. I laugh a little more often. I weed my garden. I better understand how people can say and do absolutely crazy things when they are suffering indescribable personal pain and unrelenting grief.

I know because I will always be ‘a little bit crazy’ myself…

* Song of the Open Road; Walt Whitman.

(Photo by Fritz Jung)