Grief and Losing a Child

When you lose a child, nothing seems real.

Okay, that’s not quite accurate.

The big, terrible things don’t seem real. Like the fact that they actually died. The details on how it happened. The realization that you will never ever see them or talk to them (in person) again. Those things don’t seem real. Like, for years. Maybe not ever.

On the other hand, the small mundane details seem very very real and very very noisy.

Let’s start with the fact that at some point you added your child’s name on a couple things. Like maybe your health insurance and dental insurance. Maybe a beneficiary for your life insurance because, of course, you plan(ned) to die first. But that’s about it, right? Like maybe 5 things tops? Well, they didn’t tell you that doing that was like planting a vine or maybe even a weed because it multiplied and when it was time to take them off things, you would then have to take their name off of no less than 10,000 accounts and other things where their name was listed. Did I really have him listed on my jelly-of-the-month club? You could of course leave them listed and receive mail, email, phone calls, etc. until the end of time, each referring to your child who is no longer on this plane. But who wants that?

Out of all those, the mail is the worst. The other day, I went to get the mail. I’m not always good about it, but I decided I should be. Starting today, I will be, I told myself. I bent the papers and envelopes in a struggle to get them all out of the mailbox, wondering how the mail carrier continued to fit more in, day after day. I bet they are really good at Tetris. I finally got the pile into a neat enough stack to carry it. One of the pieces of mail was vibrating. Is that normal? I made it inside and closed the door behind me. The mail was still vibrating and, as I turned, it vibrated so hard that it knocked the pile loose and everything fell to the floor.

Of course, I had to see which piece of mail was causing all the ruckus. Boring beige envelope after boring beige envelope addressed to “Nobody Important,” none of them vibrating… a bunch of junk mail… oh, there it is. A bright neon envelope with big letters written on it. FOR YOUR DEAD KID. Of course.

I stepped on it, jumped on it, tore it to pieces, burned it, rinsed it, and threw it away. Because that is what you do when you have vibrating mail.

I guess getting the mail each day is a bit much for now. I went back to letting it stack up in the mailbox after that.

Another small detail that feels very real starts with a simple question. One that people ask with ease: “How many kids do you have?” Then you’re faced with two choices.

One is to smile and answer based on the current situation. Letting them go on with their merry day, thinking you just had a pleasant conversation, never knowing the hours of pain their simple question just caused your brain. And your heart.

The other is to tell them. Tell them how that answer was one thing last year and another entirely today. And then after you ramble on like a crazy person, you get to spend the rest of the day wondering if when they said they were sorry did they mean they were truly sorry for your pain, or were they sorry they even asked.

Similarly, every time I refer to my middle child, I flinch when I become aware that there isn’t a middle child anymore… there is no longer a middle child because now I have an even number of kids. And when I refer to my daughter as my oldest? Well, I realize she shouldn’t be. She should have an older brother. And every year she gets closer and closer to his final age and pretty soon she will be older than he will ever be.

All these things seem very real. Yet, still I’m not sure if I believe he’s actually dead.