grief – The Grieving Doctor Mom

Six years.

I don’t know what to say.

Time flies … I guess. But it also goes painfully slow.

I can say I am breathing without a heavy heart most of the time. I don’t wake up and immediately think “Another day with Nolan not here. One more day closer to dying and reuniting with him and leaving this crazy, crappy F’d up world.”

Yes – those first years I thought about dying. Not taking my life. I saw how horrible it is for those left to try and go on. I would take my meds (was on an antidepressant the days after Nolan’s passing), vitamins and estrogen dosed from my weekly pill holder. Week after week I used to think it was a countdown to when I was done here….

 How many weeks, months, years do I have to be here and live like this?

Living a new grief life where I go through so many emotions in an hour? A life where I have to wear my mask to hide my pure grief, a deep sad that nobody, not even myself, would want to be around for fear of it wearing off on others? Exhaustion was completely an understatement. I went back to work three weeks after Nolan died. I had to. I am the breadwinner. And I had to be fully functioning and in complete working brain mode. Work made the days go by fast. And it kept me from constantly thinking about my loss. Kept me from the crazy thoughts of why.

It is still hard to balance the days of the “ordinary world” and the quiet days where my loss and emotions flood my mind and bring me back to sad memories of Nolan’s last months of his life.

So now we are six years from the knock on the door from the county police and coroner’s office. Are you wondering when I am going to get over Nolan’s passing? Will I ever stop lamenting about the loss of my son?

The question I would pose back would be “Have you ever stopped loving your child?” Even if you are mad or disappointed in your child – you still love them. And you can communicate your love, your emotions to that person.

I can’t call Nolan and hear his voice. I can’t hug him. Can’t watch him grow up. Maybe get married. Have kids? Maybe be alone and depressed. Maybe have an addiction. Maybe live a few years more and then take his life at an older age. All gone. No future.

I have all that love and emotion that just have nowhere to go.

That is grief.

You have heard the phrase “Time heals all wounds.”

But the phrase is better known in this famous quote:

“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone.”
Rose Kennedy

When we think of time and grief a few things need to be appreciated.

There is no correct amount of time where you are supposed to grieve.

Time does not make grief go away. It makes it softer. I have heard of the analogy of the stone in the pocket. Or the ball in the box. Glitter in the air. Grief is a heavy book on a shelf. Find what imagery resonates best with you and you understand. If you have love for someone gone your love doesn’t go away, so your grief stays with you. And you have to continue on.

Milestones of time are hard with grief. One week, one month, one year, five, ten…as time goes by we continue to live but the milestones- the anniversary of a birthday, wedding date, day of passing, these days remind us of the loss of the loved one. The fact they are not here in continuing with us. We remember the good memories but can feel the pull of guilt that they are not here and we could have done something different, maybe said something and that person would still be here. The mind thinks of clues that hindsight puts out as opportunities missed.

For me it is not Nolan’s day of passing that is any harder than the 364 other days. It is the weeks leading up to his death anniversary that pull me back to my painful memories. Those memories, those moments that I do not want to relive and remember.

I would rather like to remember the good memories, the happy ones I have of him.