Today is a Bad Day

Today is a Bad Day

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Today is a bad day.

It is a day where I feel defeated by grief; defeated by life.

It is a day where I feel like crying. And I wish that I would let it all out—but the tears won’t come. I feel the pressure behind my eyes, but not enough to break the dam. I’m left with immense feelings of heaviness and sadness.

Today is a day where I’d rather be back in bed than have to deal with everything and everyone around me. But I don’t have the luxury of sticking my head in the sand and checking out. So I do my best to stay quiet and keep to myself for fear of snapping at the next innocent person who does something ordinary that I just don’t have the patience for.

Today is a day where everything—every little task or idea—seems overwhelming. Not because it’s too difficult, but because I just don’t care. I don’t care enough about anything today to find the energy to give to it.

Why don’t I care? Because my daughter is dead—and today everything else seems completely unimportant and irrelevant in the cold darkness of that reality.

Today is a day in the middle of a difficult month that is book-ended by painful reminders of her death. Her birthday was on the first day of this month—another year passed where she didn’t grow older. The anniversary of her death is on the last day of this month. Part of me thinks this month can’t end soon enough—yet come next month, my daughter will still be dead.

Today is a day where all the beauty around me cannot seem to penetrate the fog of despair. The loving smiles and embraces of my other children; the quiet serenity of nature around me; and even the daily reminders of my daughter and her continued presence and importance in my life. None of them can overcome these painful feelings today.

Today is a day where I accept being trapped within a wave of grief that has brought me to my knees.

I will handle it the best I can. I will be kind to myself. And I will be patient with my emotions. I will try not to push myself to do more than I can handle, and lean on others for support. I will look for the love within the pain and light within the darkness.

Today is a bad day.

I hope tomorrow will be better.

Forever Four?

Forever Four?

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Next week will mark the day my daughter would have turned nine years old.

She died almost five years ago. But as a mother, I feel the responsibility to always remember how many years it has been since she was born. Just as I know the ages of my other children. I don’t want to have to fumble for the number and do the math in my head. I just want to know it, just as I know the ages of my sons whenever someone asks how old they are.

But, of course, she’s not nine years old. She only lived for four years.

So which is it? Is she forever four? Or was she four when she died and “would have been” nine now?

Whatever the answer, it serves as a painful reminder that I’ve lost the joy of seeing my daughter grow. I’m trapped in a world where I’ll always be wondering what she would have looked like? What would she have been interested in? What sports would she have played? Or would she have hated sports and preferred some artistic pursuit instead? The questions are endless.

Having all boys at home, I have no points of reference for what might have been. I have no close friends with daughters who are nine that I can hang out with and longingly see how they act or what music they’re into or what clothes they wear. 

I get glimpses of girls her “would have been” age every now and again, but they are sparse and intermittent at best.

I’m quite sure I’d be sick of the Frozen soundtrack by now, which most likely would have been on heavy rotation in our house. She would have had her own funky sense of style, and drawers and closets overflowing with a variety of clothes based on her love of them in the four years she lived. I’m quite sure she’d still be driving her brothers nuts, yet endearing herself to them at the same time.

But that’s just it – it is the underlying pain of not knowing.

No matter how far I’ve come in my journey of grief, I will always be left longing for the future I’ll never get; a future that contains all my children. So I’m left with a future that contains five children. Four of whom I’ll get to watch grow and mature, and one who will be four when she died and would have been…

What It’s Like to Lose A Child (The Journey of Bereaved Parents)

What It’s Like to Lose A Child (The Journey of Bereaved Parents)

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From the moment we found out you were coming into our lives, we felt electric: a mix of excitement, adrenaline, and a dose of fear for good measure. We dutifully began plotting the course of our lives together – starting with milestones like Kindergarten, puberty, graduation, career, wedding, and grandchildren. Then we began making our maps more detailed with our hopes and dreams for you. We prepared as well as we could for your arrival.

On the day you came into our lives, we held out our loving arms and said softly, “Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”

We stared into the vast universe reflected deep within your eyes with awe and wonder. You were a part of us; an extension of our very being. As you stared back into our eyes, a feeling of intense love for you took root in every cell of our body. This was true, unconditional love with no boundaries and no end.

Our lives were more meaningful with you in it. You gave us a greater sense of purpose and a profound sense of responsibility. Your life was ours to protect; ours to mold and guide. We needed to teach you all that we knew; try to help you avoid making the same mistakes we had made and afford you every opportunity to make your unique mark on this world. We wanted to make sure your life would become better than our own.

In return, all we asked from you was your continued unconditional love, because it felt wonderful. Better than anything else in this life of ours.

We did the best we could as parents, but weren’t perfect. There were plenty of mistakes intermixed with successes. We got off course of our map here and there and had to identify some new routes, but the destination was always the same: we would take care of you until one day you would take care of us.

At that point we would say goodbye and leave you to be on your own. By then you would have a family and be following your own map. We’d leave happy in the knowledge that we made the world a better place by bringing you into it.

But then the impossible happened. You died before we did.

On the day you died, our hearts shattered into a million pieces, as did the world around us. We were left in a dark, unfamiliar place where pain filled every cell of our body where your love once lived.

The air around us was now hard to breathe. Gravity was stronger than before, and the simple act of sitting or standing used up all of our strength and energy. Our map had disintegrated and we were hopelessly, utterly lost in the darkness of horror and misery.

Amid the darkness, familiar hands grabbed ours. Voices of family and friends guided us as we fumbled about in this strange new world, not knowing what to do. These family and friends all gathered around us to ceremoniously say goodbye to you.

And yet we couldn’t. The words never made it to our mouths. We were sure this was all a mistake – a nightmare that we would wake up from and find you standing over us smiling and laughing. We cried out for you, but got no answer in return.

As our family and friends left us to be on our own without you, the familiar world we once knew began to reappear around us.

And yet it was very different than before. We could interact with it, but we couldn’t touch this world because we were trapped in a bubble of despair. Most people couldn’t see our bubble. To them, it looked as if we were the same person we were before you died – maybe sadder, but basically the same. They expected us to quickly go back to our old routines and be our “old selves”. But they couldn’t see our bubble, and that we had fundamentally changed.

Inside that bubble, everything felt overwhelming. Our reactions to common sights and sounds were different than before. Laughter and joy made us angry and sick to our stomach. We were filled with resentment that the world itself hadn’t ceased to exist when you died.

Happiness was now out of reach, and we felt as though we’d never get it back. Some of us didn’t want it back if you weren’t there to share it with us. Even when we were surrounded by people outside our bubble, we felt hopelessly alone and misunderstood.

We became excellent actors worthy of an Oscar. We learned to pretend we were better and back to “normal” for the benefit of those around us. “Fine” is how we mostly answered the question of, “How are you?” We looked desperately around us for people who actually wanted to hear the truth. We were not fine.

When you left us, you took a part of us, and the void it left still ached with a pain so unbearable, we couldn’t find adequate words to describe it.

A few people could see our bubbles; most of them lived in bubbles themselves. Unlike the majority of people in the world around us, these people had the ability to reach inside our bubble and embrace us with understanding. We didn’t have to pretend to be okay around them. We could break down and cry as loud and long as we needed to without worrying about making them uncomfortable. We found a sense of community that we had lost when you died.

But none of this made the pain go away.

Over time, small cracks began to develop in our bubbles. These cracks let more light into our dim world. The air that came inside was easier to breathe. The gravity lightened a bit.

It still hurt to be alive in a world without you, but we began to learn how to adjust to it so that it wasn’t as debilitating as before.

Many of us learned to pry open the cracks in our bubbles a bit more to let in even more light and air. This changed the chemistry of the atmosphere inside our bubble from that of despair to a mix of memories and longing for you. We learned how to feel happiness and joy once again, even though it never made the pain deep within us subside. We began to learn how to better function in the world around us while still in the confines of our bubbles.

Our bubbles never fully go away. They change over time and may shrink considerably, but the pain will never leave us. This is because the pain was created by – and coexists with – your love that took root in every cell of our body when we stared into your eyes that very first time. And sometimes, we can momentarily release the feeling of pain by focusing our attention on you and the love you gave us that still lives in our bodies. You remain with us and a part of us.

The fact is we would have died for you. We would have gladly given up our own lives in a heartbeat if it meant you could have continued living. But no one has ever learned how to go back in time to make that sacrifice.

So we are left to live and breathe in a world without you. We have to create a new map that takes us into uncharted territory. We do this in your honor, and in honor of our family and friends that remain by our side.

We will continue down this new path until we take our own last breaths. And when we leave this world and head into the unknown, we hope to see you there with open, loving arms and hear you say softly, “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for you.”

©Maria Kubitz 2014

The Challenges of Raising Children After the Death of a Child

The Challenges of Raising Children After the Death of a Child

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I will never know the unique pain of losing an only child.

But I know all too well that raising my sons after the death of my daughter was full of challenges.

At the time of her death, our family consisted of my husband and me, our three boys from our previous marriages (ages 10, 9, and 7), and our daughter together, Margareta (age 4). Two of her older brothers were home with us on that fateful day. They watched in helpless fear as the chaos of her drowning unfolded. I remember the police trying to distract me as I continued to scream in horror at the sight of paramedics desperately working on her. They kept telling me to comfort my boys instead. How could I? We had moments of hugging and sobbing together. But I would be compelled to go back and watch the resuscitation efforts to see if there was any sign of hope.

I completely abandoned the boys in their greatest time of need.

We all went to the hospital where doctors tried to resuscitate her in the ER. My stepson and his mom joined us. Despite all efforts, our daughter was pronounced dead. Our boys went to stay with their other parents that night. My husband and I were simply unable to function.

The boys did not return for several days. When they did, we were not the parents they needed. We were captives of our devastation. We did the best we could, but in hindsight, they had not only lost their sister. They had lost their parents too.

In the days and months that followed, we tried to make sure they received the external support they needed.

We took them to a grief counselor and worked with their schools to make sure they had regular emotional check-ins. So they wouldn’t be inundated with uncomfortable questions and unwanted attention from classmates, we tried to keep the knowledge of their sister’s death limited to close friends and sports teammates. We signed them up for grief support activities and groups at a local hospice. We bought them journals to write or draw in and encouraged them to talk about their feelings.

Despite all of this, they never wanted to talk to us about her death or their feelings. They didn’t want to return to the grief support groups after those first sessions and turned down offers to go to a grief support camp for kids. They eventually stopped wanting to talk to the school counselor. It was frustrating to say the least. I was horribly concerned for their wellbeing. As a mother, I hated the idea of them holding in all the painful feelings I was sure they had.

I already felt that I had failed my daughter in the worst way possible. Now I felt like I was failing them too.

My various grief support counselors reassured me that their behavior was normal. They explained that younger children are not equipped to deal with such intense feelings. They need to return to a sense of normalcy to feel safe. Counselors explained that it will likely be many years before they begin to fully process their sister’s death. I was advised to just keep an eye on them for signs of major depression or sudden changes in behavior. So I did.

Despite their need to return to “normal,” I was unable to shield them from my overwhelming grief.

Even if I had tried, I wouldn’t have been able to suppress my tears and obvious sadness. Since I couldn’t, I decided I needed to be honest with them. I needed them to know it was normal to feel sad. I wanted them to know that the painful feelings after the death of a loved one isn’t something you sweep under the rug and never talk of again.

With the birth of their baby brother the year after Margareta’s death, I was faced with a new challenge. How do you raise a child in the shadow of the death of a sister he never knew? We knew he was not a “replacement” of his sister, but how would we make sure he knows that? I wondered if my grief would allow me to be the mother he needed. Thankfully, I was.

I think for all of us, he was the catalyst for reintroducing joy into our lives.

That is not to say our painful feelings of grief magically disappeared on his arrival – quite the opposite. But he taught us that intense pain and joy can coexist together. Feelings of pain can be softened by joy, and grief has the effect of making our appreciation of the sweetness and joys of life become that much more meaningful.

Once he became a toddler, new challenges arose. He could recognize Margareta in pictures, but he didn’t understand why he couldn’t play with her. Trips to the cemetery were normal for him. Although he didn’t really know why we were there. He was too young to explain the concept of death in a way that he truly understood.

Years after her death, I asked my older children what was the hardest part of losing their sister. Their answer was unanimous: they didn’t like thinking about it because it was so painful.

They didn’t want to talk to me about it because it would just make me sadder. They aren’t as uncomfortable thinking about it as much these days, but they don’t go out of their way to do so. Thankfully, as they grew older, they felt more comfortable expressing their feelings.

I know the challenges of raising children in the wake of their sister’s death are probably far from over and will change over time. We don’t know what lies ahead, but we know that we will love and support each other along the way.

Why I Hate Mother’s Day (Thoughts from a Mother Whose Child Died)

Why I Hate Mother’s Day (Thoughts from a Mother Whose Child Died)

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I’ve never been a big fan of Mother’s Day.

I grew up in a household where my own mother thought Mother’s Day was a racket created by Hallmark and the retail industry to sell more products. She taught me from an early age that you should show love and appreciation every day – not just reserve it for one day out of the year. She preferred hand-made cards over store-bought, and she preferred hand-made presents and quality time with us over bouquets of flowers, jewelry, or store-bought gifts.

When I became a mother myself, I was often embarrassed at the fuss others would make over me on Mother’s Day.

While I appreciated the presents and acknowledgement of my success as a mother, I too believed that you should strive to show love and appreciation every day rather than one day out of the year.

But in 2010, my view of Mother’s Day completely changed. Instead of seeing it as an unnecessary excuse to sell products, it became a day I downright detested the thought of. It was the first Mother’s Day after the drowning death of my 4-year-old daughter the previous fall.

Mother’s Day was now a horrible, impossibly painful reminder that one of my children – one of my reasons for being – was no longer with me.

I remember telling my husband that year that I wanted no celebration. No presents. No acknowledgement of what day it was. The mere thought of it brought tears to my eyes and a sick feeling in my stomach. There was nothing to celebrate. How could there be?

Mother’s Day was now like a big scarlet letter on my chest showing what a horrible mother I was. I felt as if I had failed as a mother by failing to keep my child safe. I had lied to her all the times I had told her, “Mommy will never let anything happen to you.”

For any mother who has lost a child – and for that matter, anyone who has lost their mom – Mother’s Day is not a day of celebration, but of sadness.

The reminder of what you have lost overshadows the memories of what you once had. It doesn’t help that in the U.S., Mother’s Day is one of the most heavily advertised “holidays” behind Christmas. You can’t escape it. Reminders are EVERYWHERE.

Time has softened my feelings of failure as a mother. I have accepted that what happened to my daughter was a tragic accident. And I know that most of the time, the actions and activities that happened on that fateful day do not end in death. I understand that it is unreasonable to think I can be with my children 24 hours a day protecting them from every threat. And I definitely know now that certain things are simply not in my control.

Still, if I had my way, I’d prefer to avoid Mother’s Day altogether. It has become a day for my children, not for me.

It is a day for them to follow the societal norm and show that they appreciate and love me. I will appreciate whatever they choose to do or give to me, but it will never again be a truly happy day for me. It will forever be a reminder that one of my children is missing from the celebration. The only thing that could ever change my mind about Mother’s Day is to have all five of my children with me on that day.

But, of course, that will never happen.

 

 

The Anniversary of A Loved One’s Death

The Anniversary of A Loved One’s Death

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Soon it will be the anniversary of my daughter’s death.

Over the years, I have struggled with how to deal with this particular day. It isn’t like her birthday. Her birthday is painful now, but represents a wonderful day in my life. Instead, the anniversary of her death represents the worst day of my life.

A day full of images, sounds, smells, and chaos that I’d rather erase altogether. It represents a day filled with horror. There is no other word I can use to adequately describe it. It may not have been a mass shooting or terrorist act that got 24-hour media attention, but it shattered my heart into a million pieces and part of me died that day too.

The year leading to the first anniversary of her death was agonizing.

Everything that first year was new, uncharted territory. Each “first” – Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, family birthdays, vacation – was like swallowing broken glass. How could we celebrate when she wasn’t here to celebrate it with us? The fact that her birthday is 29 days before the anniversary of her death compounded the stress. These weren’t just societal holidays to celebrate with the rest of the world. They were specifically representative of her.

Coming up on the first anniversary of her death, I would lay awake in the middle of the night. Anxiety overwhelmed me as I wondered how I could possibly get through that day without completely losing it? I decided I would hide from the world that day.

I stayed home like a hermit, and the day came and went. But it was a day full of sadness. A day where I couldn’t hold back the images of that horrible day from invading my thoughts. A day when I replayed the “what if” and “why” questions I had let go of months before.

For the second anniversary of her death, I was determined not to hide in sadness. Instead, I wanted to somehow transform the day into a positive one.

I decided it would become a day of gratitude for the people who tried to help on the day she died. I wrote thank you cards to those who were involved in that day and the aftermath. One of the stops was the fire station down the street that first responded to the 911 call. Taking two of my sons with me, we walked up to the fire house door and knocked.

Three firemen came to the door and I explained why I was there. Two of them said they had come to our house and worked on my daughter. With tears in my eyes, I thanked them for their efforts even though she hadn’t made it.

With tears in their own eyes, they said they never forget the times that little kids don’t make it. While I’m glad I had the opportunity to talk to them in person, it didn’t provide me with the peace I was hoping for.

The third anniversary of her death, I tried to treat the day like it was just any other typical day.

That attempt simply ended in outbursts of anger resulting from repressing my emotions. The fact is, it isn’t just any other day to me. And I can’t pretend otherwise.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong way to approach the anniversary of our loved one’s death.

What “works” for me may not “work” for anyone else. I’m sure my thoughts, anxieties, expectations, etc. will evolve over time. These days, I just take it as it comes and know that it will be a sad day no matter what I do.  I’ll just have to be ok with that.

I don’t really have any other choice.