15 Weeks

I continue to sit wherever it is that I happen to be sitting, and wonder how the hell we got to this place.

I understand what happened but I DON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED.

I know that he is gone but I DON'T GET THAT HE'S NOT COMING BACK.

I realize that I will never be the same person again but I DON'T LIKE THE PERSON I'VE BECOME.

Nothing is the same. Nothing looks the same, nothing feels the same, nothing tastes the same and nothing sounds the same.

People continue to defriend me on FB and un-follow my blog yet I STILL don't blame them. Perhaps a part of my new reality is expecting to be disappointed. Well, maybe not disappointed. Maybe just blah. Or let down. Because when I see my numbers drop, I'm not so much as bothered by it (their choice after all) as I am just thinking it's par for the course. The universe has already given me the worst that it can....why not just add more on top of it?

Living under a thick coat of constant sadness is not something I'd recommend to anyone. It makes doing anything, harder. No matter how much I WANT to smile or laugh or just kick back and relax, that coat of despair and longing and wishful thinking rears it's ugly head and swallows me whole.

Losing a child is horrible. And disgusting. And devastating.

But losing a child that CHOSE to leave is like facing a demon monster from the deepest, darkest pit of hell.

There's no mental preparation for it. NOTHING.

Nothing in my world gave me the resources to cope with this. Not for one second at any time or any place, did I grow a skin thick enough to handle this situation.

Yet in some ways, I AM functioning.

Which is entirely different from handling/coping with it. But unless your child took their own life, I don't expect you'll understand that difference.

But that's ok.

I pray to God you never have to understand.

I've gotten up, gotten dressed, gone to work, cleaned the house, cooked dinner (sort of), fed the dogs, did laundry and mowed the lawn for 15 weeks. Fifteen long, painful weeks, when all I really wanted to do was cling to John and Connor like no tomorrow.

Cuz that's really what I want to do...what I need to do...what makes sense to me.

They are what I live for now. They are what keeps me going. What makes me get up each day and do all those things I have to do.

Although I don't want to.

What I want is 15 weeks and 1 day ago.

What I need is for one gun to disappear.

What I crave is to have my son back in my life.

I started scrap booking this weekend.

Because my son is dead.

No two ways about it.

I DIDN'T scrapbook BEFORE he killed himself.

Yet now I do.

He died....therefore, I scrapbook.

My life sucks.

It's Just Too Much

As if the horrible memories I have in my head of those last few moments were not bad enough...

Shaw's is directly across from a crematorium.

The crematorium where my beloved son was cremated.

The crematorium that I never, ever gave a single thought to until my 20 year old ended up there.

It has two smoke stacks. At least I think there's two. I can't bear to look long enough to accurately count.

Those smoke stacks are blackened at the top.

Soot covered.

Giant, black as night smudges.

Seeing them makes me want to physically vomit.

I can't stop wondering if my son is part of those blackened smudges.

If part of my Shmoops is mixed into those marks.

Wondering KILLS ME.

How the hell did it come to this?

Over the last 40 years, what could have possibly prepared me to deal with this?

Which chapter in (INSERT NAME OF ANY ONE OF THE GAZILLION CHILD REARING BOOKS OUT THERE) taught me how to cope with this reality?

I go to pick up milk.

I see where my son was cremated.

God help me.

Sitting here with a sore throat and an increasingly heavy heart. Life is hard. I feel lost and helpless. And it's not fun.

Can't find words to truly describe what life has become for me.

Cuz quite frankly, there are none.

I am NOT in shock.

But I still can't believe this happened.

I can hear him. And see him.

Well, at least in my mind. And the mind is a tricky thing.

Sometimes I find myself staring at the front door. Closing my eyes really tight. Repeating common phrases he said OVER and OVER. As if doing all that will bring him back.

I cringe when it hits me all over again. And it does hit me repeatedly. Like rogue waves on a stormy sea.

It's been OVER three months.

I am as empty as I've ever been.

"Just because I smile doesn't mean I'm happy."

Saw this quote on a suicide survivor website.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Alone with my thoughts and hating every one of them. Feeling intense loss. Wondering how life will ever be "normal" again. Despising that my enter life will forever be linked to one horrible moment in time.

Wasn't going to write but thought, why not? Nothing helps so nothing can hurt, right?

Yes, I'm in counseling. But honestly? Not sure it's helping. But it might not be hurting so I continue to go.

The crying hasn't lessened. I do it at night. I do it in the shower. I do it in work. I TRY not to do it so much. I even try to hide it from John and Connor. Not that they have given me ANY reason to do so. I just hate that I do it SO MUCH.

I sniff his shirt...the one he changed out of only a short time before....it.

It still smells like him. I drape it over my head and die a little inside. Makes me wonder why I keep doing it. But I can't stop. So I won't.

I look at his name on my finger. I scream inside my head that I SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD TO TATTOO MY SUICIDAL SON'S NAME ON MY FINGER. I think over and over that this is just a bad dream. Well it is. So there.

I look at pictures. Over and over. And I weep. There will be NO MORE PICTURES. Ever. I'll be a 90 year old woman someday and still be looking at CJ as a 20 year old man. Not 21, not 36, not 55. Just 20.

And then I pray. To who, I don't know. Things aren't crystal clear for me anymore. Don't know what or who I believe in anymore...if anything.

But I still pray.

That Connor will live until he's an old man. That he will experience everything his brother will miss. That he will have more joy than pain in his life. That he will be successful in whatever he chooses to do. That he may know the happiness that children will bring him.

That he will always know that I LOVE HIM MORE THAN WORDS CAN EXPRESS. That NOTHING will ever be so bad, so hard, that his being gone would be the answer.

CJ's birthday was hell. Hell in a beautiful location, but hell nonetheless.

Wish July 3rd would just fall off the calendar. FOREVER.

There is nothing worth celebrating on that day anymore. My son CHOSE to KILL himself. For sure (at least right now) that totally overshadows his birth.

Still confused as to why people continue to reach out to me. I am NOT FUN. At all. And I still only respond occasionally. When I'm not crying. Or dying a little inside.

Or screaming at the computer screen, "YOU HAVE YOUR 20 YEAR OLD SON SHOOT HIMSELF IN THE HEAD, THEN WATCH HIM SWELL AND DIE, AND YOU SEE HOW AT PEACE YOU ARE." See how much YOU THINK he's in a better place.

Cuz people have said that. And I JUST DON'T GET IT.

He is NOT in a better place. Not for me anyway.

I miss you Shmoops so much.

SO. FREAKIN. MUCH.