Reflections From The Wreckage

Grief masks itself in many different emotions until the disguise comes off and you realize its grief. Grief looks like physical symptoms that can cause one to feel sick or cause some type of physical pain. For about a week or so after Jacob passed I noticed that I was having these excruciating pains in the back of my head. Other times it would feel like a migraine that wouldn’t go away. Coincidentally these pains I was feeling were in the very same spots Jacob used to complain of pain. I didn’t say anything at the time because I think ‘’My pain is insignificant right now compared to what’s taken place.’’ I also thought ‘’What I am feeling doesn’t even hold a candle to what that little boy felt on a day to day basis.’’ I’ve read a lot of books since Jacob died and Shockingly physical pains can be grief related as well. Often times the ones left behind feel pain in the same areas they’re loved had pains if their passing was caused by some type of illness, disease, tragedy etc. Grief feels like physical pain that doesn’t subside. In some strange ways that only makes sense to another griever I welcomed the pain because I thought ‘’I am allowed to feel even a little bit of that my son felt. I prayed, begged, pleaded and attempted to barter with God to give me the cancer and pain to free my son. He is allowing me to feel the tiniest portion of it now.’’ Physical manifestations of pain was Grief all along, Pull up a chair Grief.

Grief feels like fear. In the days, weeks, and months following Jacob’s passing I felt tremendous amounts of fear. It looks a lot like panic attacks and anxiety except the intensity is cranked up to the max. I’m the type of person that will look at a situation that is trending towards destruction and say ‘’I don’t care, doesn’t bother me.’’ Yet in reality the ending of the situation is all I think about, keeps me awake at night and is all I think about everyday. I realized something that maybe isn’t so profound to others after Jacob died. Anything can happen to anyone at anytime. So that mentality followed me into grief. I began having anxiety and full blown panic attacks wondering where the next grenade was going to go off. Who’s holding the pin? What is going to end next? Who is leaving me next? I looked at relationships in my life and all I could see was how much I screwed them up over the years. Issues that got suppressed and buried but were staring me in the face in the wake of this tragedy. I looked at my job and thought ‘’How is this going to end? At what point is it too much? When and how will I be let go?’’ I looked at my own mortality and thought ‘’How much time do I have left? When will my name be called?’’ I no longer looked forward to future events instead I dreaded them. I looked at my remaining children and thought ‘’If they make it to this age, we will do this.’’ I sat down with fear and realized, Oh its just you grief. Pull up a chair, I’ll make us some coffee.

Grief looks like a change in perspective, a change in the way you view time. I now look at things as before and after. ‘’Oh that was before Jacob got sick, that was before he died.’’ Future events are now ‘’That’s after Jacob died, that’s after he got sick.’’ I no longer look at future events as something to look forward to rather what can I do to survive that day. Survival, just survive the day until you close your eyes. I see relationships in my life as precious as gold. I take more pictures of the kids now because you don’t fully know the value of a picture until it becomes a memory and memories are all you have. I look at things in life such as a job, finances, material things as temporary, fleeting. They have a place in our lives but things aren’t what I miss the most when I think about Jacob. Things don’t hold spaces in my memories when I think about him. I think if you could talk to Jacob right now he wouldn’t talk about the things he accumulated here but the people he made the memories with.

Grief looks like jealousy. When I’m talking to someone or overhear another parent talking about how Inconvienced they are having to do this or that with their kids. Jealousy and even rage begins to surface. Because I think ‘’How could you say that knowing all I/we have gone through. You know what I would do or give to be able to do something with ALL my children.’’ It looks like being out and seeing families together that are whole and complete. It looks like taking your kids somewhere and seeing kids that are about your child’s age running, playing without a care in the world. Nothing hindering them or holding them back. It looks like going to an event and seeing kids at different stages and ages of their lives thinking ‘’Jacob will never see that time period. Jacob will never see that age or get to do that.’’ When Jacob got sick and we got split apart. All I wanted was to be together again, to return to normalcy. I was jealous of couples and families that got to be together all the time. We all got to come together again but now we are missing a HUGE chunk of our family, heart, soul etc. It’s scary when these intense feelings of jealousy and rage surface until you realize, ‘’Oh hello grief come on in.’’

Grief looks like loneliness. Intense feelings of loneliness, being in a room full of people and feeling completely alone. Thinking to yourself ‘’No one here understands what I’m going through or how much it took for me to be here today.’’ Talking and meeting with people all day everyday hearing the question, ‘’How are you?’’ Replying ‘’I’m fine. Or I’m good and you?’’ All the while wanting to scream at the top of your lungs ‘’IM BROKEN. IM NOT OKAY, NOTHING IS OKAY.’’ Having conversations with people that try to compare losses in their own life to the loss of your child. These conversations make you feel all sorts of emotions but at the end you feel even more alone. You come away with the same thought, ‘’No one understands, I am alone.’’ Intense bouts of loneliness only to find out loneliness has a name and its name is Grief.

Grief feels like Regret. Tremendous amounts of regret, what ifs, why, why not, how could etc. When I think about Jacob and his life I look back on all the time I should have spent more time with him. I think back and say ‘’Why was I at work here and there but not wherever he was.’’ Why did I have to be here and why couldn’t I be where he was. I have to work in order to obtain money so that I can pay bills. Yet the regret remains the same. I should have been there, I should have been wherever he was. Impossible I know but the feeling remains. Why didn’t I tell him how much I loved him, how proud of him I was every second of every day. Why didn’t I sit by his bed side while he slept just to be near him. How could this have happened? How did everything change so quickly and suddenly. Just about every moment of Jacob’s life here is documented with pictures and videos but now I’m like I need more. I should have done more. I wish I would have made more videos with and of him while he was here even after he got sick. I wish I had more recordings of his voice, I miss his voice. If we took the doctors at their word and believed what they said that he had limited time why didn’t I make videos of him saying ‘’Happy Birthday or Merry Christmas?’’

Grief looks a lot like chasing dopamine. It looks like doing things and going places you normally would not go. Because you’re chasing relief in the smallest forms yet the relief is so temporary so fleeting its like a shooting star or the twinkling of an eye. A moment or really a second of joy quickly turns to sadness because your child is gone. You realize ‘’This doesnt make me happy or make me feel any better. Reality is the same, Jacob is gone.’’ Doing things to try and stay busy until you’re stopped in your tracks by a memory, a thing, a thought, a phrase, a place, a conversation and suddenly you unravel all over again. Temporary grief relief in whatever form the griever chooses until the temporary wears off.

Grief looks like being around people who are smiling, laughing, living, enjoying their life. Thinking to yourself ‘’How and Why are you still carrying on? Don’t know you know there’s a beautiful green eyed wild little boy missing?’’ It looks like wondering how you are supposed to be productive and useful at work when you’ve lost so much in such a short amount of time. You constantly ask yourself ‘’How can I do this? How will I do that? Why am I here right now?’’ You find it very hard to focus on what’s in front of you because the lingering thought of ‘’Why does this matter or it doesnt matter’’ quickly follows.

Grief looks like having very little sympathy/empathy for peoples problems. The little things in life that inconvenience all of us. The problems we all encounter always leave you thinking ‘’You think that’s a problem? I’m having a hard time sympathizing with you on that issue right now.’’ You hear people complaining about this or that and you wanna scream ‘’I LOST MY SON. HE DIED, I DONT AND WONT GET HIM BACK.’’ You remain quiet though and do your best to help the person even if that means just listening. Because you never want someone to feel invalidated or unheard, I don’t.

Grief is all consuming and comes in a variety shapes or forms. You try desperately not to become someone that no one wants to be around. You wage war internally everyday because you feel like a monster at times. You feel like a mindless helpless zombie who is running on auto pilot. You hear people tell you about how much you have changed and how different things used to be. There’s the you that was before your child died and the you that showed up after your child died. Neither is the same and will ever be the same. Losing a child is walking around with a wound that is always bleeding but not enough to kill you. You think it is going to kill you sooner rather than later. There are times you might think you wouldn’t stop it if it did. Yet it doesnt, just bleeds. Very few people can see this wound and most will expect you to be healed after a while.

All this you’re reading is from a newly bereaved parent. I try not to think about the future because it’s all so overwhelming. I think about the next hour sometimes the next minute or second. Thinking about anything more than that a literally makes my stomach turn when I realize Jacob wont be here for that time period either. I do my best to show up for the ones I have left now. I try and pour the love I have left into the ones that mean the most to me. I keep Jacob’s memory alive by writing about him. I talk about him, I eat foods he liked and watch things he enjoyed. I do and buy things that brought him happiness. I try with all my heart to love and care for THE most important person to him his mom. I tell his siblings how much I love them and how proud of them I am more than I did in the past. I reach out to other hurting fathers who just need an arm on the shoulder and a ‘’I know how that feels, I’m here for you.’’ I let those closest to him here know how much he loved them and how he talked about them. I thank God for his life here on earth, for the time I had him. I have a heart of gratitude that is completely broken and forever longing. I wear this badge of honor called grief that says ‘’I loved someone so much and this is what it cost me.’’ I wear a badge of honor that says ‘’I’m Jacob’s dad. I was chosen to be his father.’’ This is what grief looks like.