“Good Morning” I said chirpily to one of my colleagues as I walked into the office one sunny morning.
“Good Morning” she replied, just as happily.
We asked about each other’s weekends and exchanged pleasantries. She told me that she was aching all over after being in the garden all weekend. It had been a lovely weekend weather wise so the perfect time for gardening apparently.
“But I really miss him… just someone to come out and give me a nice cuppa and a smile”
I nodded my head back as I could relate to what she was saying. My co-worker had lost her husband a few years ago.
Bereavement really does suck. The thought of never being able to see a loved one again – to speak to them or touch them. Death is so final and anyone who has lost someone they love and care about will relate to the feeling of emptiness. Yes time is supposedly a healer, although I would argue this saying as time does not heal the wounds of the bereaved. You never completely heal. You just learn how to manage those intense emotions. It feels like people start to get sick of hearing you say the same thing. But you can’t help it as no matter what happens in your life, there’s always the empty little space that is just never going to be filled. And when you get reminded of that emptiness it’s like a slap in the face that brings back all of those raw emotions that you thought you had addressed. I still have days I don’t want to get out of bed. Uncontrollable crying episodes. Moments where I can’t breathe. It all just sucks. No one should have to go through this. But sadly it’s part of life – the circle of life with death.
Losing a loved one doesn’t bear thinking about. I’ve lost grandparents, aunts, uncles. I’ve understood when an elderly person who is suffering a lot leaves us as I personally would rather see them at peace than suffering. I’ve been saddened by the sudden loss of a life who still had so much to see. I’ve wondered “why” when a middle aged person passes after suffering from disease as it seems so unfair for a life to be taken that way. But the loss of a child or baby is really something else – it’s not even fathomable. No parent should ever have to go through losing their child. To have a life that has not even lived be taken. It will never make sense to me and one day when I do get to have that face to face with God, I will have to ask the question: “What the hell were you doing??”
It’s coming to that one year milestone for us. I’m not quite sure how we’ve gotten through a day since Shayen died let alone a whole year. This year has to have been the toughest of our lives. A year of firsts without our son… milestone days so hard that getting through them seemed unthinkable. But we did it. We got through Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We dreamed about what life would have been like with him here. We ensured Niva was well supported and managed to answer the hundreds of questions she had (and still has) about her brother. We successfully integrated Shayen into our family without him being here and we talk about him every single day. And as impossible as it sounds right now, I know we’ll get through Shayen’s first angel birthday with him looking down on us with a rainbow.