A raw nerve exposed - Grief and Loss observed

When Aben was born, I was a very lonely person. I'm not a person a lot of people get close to, I'm strange and I talk too much. I am very sensitive to the uneasiness people develop when we're talking and I go off on a tangent that makes zero sense to them. It's a part of my life, most people don't get me. And, as a young man, it hurt a lot to be unloved and unwanted.   But suddenly there was this wonderful, beautiful little boy who loved me without hesitation, and always wanted to be around me. And I was so happy every time he was with me. I can remember getting off of the bus from work and him running down the block with his arms wide open just waiting for me to catch him with his mom or grandma trailing behind. When I would drop him off at daycare before I went to work at Office Depot, we would wait for the 309 bus and I would put him up on my shoulders so he could make the 'air horn' sign at passing big rigs, and it thrilled him when they would honk back ...

The wake and funeral were some of the most surreal moments of my life. Everyone was very kind and they performed full military honors. While the casket was open, I was able to hold his hand, and I just thought about all the times he held my hand when he was little. Reaching out for daddy. And I held it every time. He had my hands. There were gloves on in his dress uniform, but the last time he was here I remember holding my hand up to his and thinking how much his hands were like mine. Only where I had stray freckles, he had the rich mocha tone of his mother's skin. So I held his hand one last time. I had a ring I wanted to give him at Christmas, so I put that in his pocket. I just kept thinking that if somehow, a resurrection is real and possible, that after he woke up, he would look in his pocket and see the ring there, and he would know that I put it there. He would know that dad was there at his last moments just as I was at his first.  I was the first person to carry Aben in t...

The most frightening thing about losing my son is the waves of grief and how they affect everyone who lost him. Marcus Aurelius tells us that grief and anger can be worse than the things that caused the grief and anger, but it seems impossible to control.  The very fabric of my reality has been torn open and will be forever changed. I don't seem to have much control over this change, but I am trying to be a good person through it. I am a vastly different person than I was on July 8th. This is a forest fire raging through the core of me. It's self-hatred and regret and pain scouring any kind of soft ideas inside of me  Only the mighty oaks and great mountains of what I know to be true remain.  I don't know if I'm going to continue in medicine. I want to. But how am I going to save lives when my own son needed help and I couldn't reach him in time?  I'm working with well meaning grief counselors and therapists. If I must change, then I want to direct how I will ch...

“When the longest- and shortest-lived of us dies their loss is precisely equal. For the sole thing of which any of us can be deprived is the present, since this is all we own, and nobody can lose what is not theirs.” ―  Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations

Mourning is a long process of working through grief. It is NOT expected of you to suffer every second.  This loss is a new and permanent part of your life and it imposes itself, spreading wave after wave into every aspect of your existence. It is an unwelcome adjustment forced upon you by circumstances you could not control. Eventually it will be a permanent part of your life in one way or another, but this unwanted labor that demands your attention is not the master of your life and emotions.  It might seem impossible to think of at first, but it is healthy to temporarily give yourself permission to enter a headspace where you choose to have no opinions on anything outside of it. This headspace is your grief bubble. A temporary self imposed exile from the unthinkable situation at hand. It seems impossible at first. How could you just "decide" to not care about this monumental loss.  But as a human being, you have a remarkable ability to decide what is important at any mo...

Link to imgur post:  https://imgur.com/gallery/88taK1e He was one of my favorite people on the planet. He was creative, sweet, and he really cared about other people. He was such a good big brother, and always looked out for the younger kids. He was brilliant at programming rhythm and beats. I always liked when he would ninja sample me practicing guitar, like around the corner without me knowing,  and then make a little song out of it.  He really loved all kinds of music.  He also used to draw these massive cityscapes in perfect 3 point perspective and make up whole stories about the people in them. He would just add an 8 1/2 x 11 page with scotch tape when he needed to add space to his scene. And he had always talked about being a civil engineer and solving problems with traffic and all that. He was just a brilliant mind, and I still love him so much.  But he also suffered from severe bipolar disorder. As he grew up with me, I made the decision that, since I ha...