I walked to the cabinet, picked up a wine glass, walked out the back door and slammed it as hard as I could to the ground. I screamed out loud.  I crouched down, hugged my knees and rocked back and forth while I cried. I stood up, walked back to the cabinet, picked a plate and threw that one down. I kept at it for a while. Crying, marching back to the cabinet, tossing dishes onto the concrete and watching them shatter into pieces. The quiet of the night, the noise of the bugs in the dark interrupted with crashes of glass and ceramic as the broken pieces spread across my back porch.

Little shards hit my ankles as the dishes broke. If I had gotten cut I would have welcomed it. I much rather feel the pain on the outside. If it’s on the outside you bandage it and it heals. It is hard to find relief when the pain is on the inside. I was looking for a bandage by breaking something. I needed to let it out. 

I am angry. I am sad. I am hurt. I am lonely. I have no control. I have no freaking control! Anger is like a poison. I don’t like how it stews and burns on the inside of me.  It’s prickly with sharp edges. It eats up the good. It taints my days. I need a punching bag to punch. I don’t have one though I’m thinking it might need to be on my next shopping list next to dishes.

I chose breaking dishes on the hard concrete to let the anger out. Oh I picked which dishes and I counted to make sure I had at least 4 of each before I walked back outside. (I’m practical even in my anger.) It helped. I feel a little better. It helps to see it all broken and scattered on the concrete this morning. The pain is visible in a way and I am in no hurry to clean it up.

My grief stretches wider than the death of my son though that makes me very angry at times. It is a broken marriage of half of my lifetime. A broken family. I lay under a bus that I threw myself under to shield and protect. There is loss of family and friends. The home that I ran and took care of, where my kids grew up in is on the market to be sold. Riley’s organ is at the dump buried under someone else’s garbage. A 400 lb albatross that didn’t work yet it was one of Riley’s prized possessions. If only I had been asked first. If only I had a chance to find it a home before it got pushed off the back of a truck. I have no control.

Those broken dishes that lay on the ground represent my grief in more than one area of my life. Eventually I will pick up the pieces, sweep it up and bag it. I want to throw away the anger with the broken dishes. I want peace. I need peace of some sort as I sift through my life. If only I could live in a cocoon.

Like a butterfly emerges from a cocoon, I have to believe despite what life brings, that I can fly above it all. I want to look forward not backwards. Can the grief of losing a child have its place in our lives without it taking over and ruining us? I believe so.

With grief comes anger, hurt, pain. I will carry Riley with me in my  heart forever.  I will mourn for him and miss him until the day that I die. I will get over these other circumstances that have created anger. I have accepted that Riley is gone. I can’t bring him back.  I will continue to tell Riley’s story in hope that his story saves a life.

Harboring anger has eaten me up inside. I cannot walk barefoot in my freshly cut grass that I proudly mowed myself because it is now laden with broken glass. My advice is: Don’t hold it in. Let it out. The longer you hold the bitter emotions in, the bigger it will fester. Cry if you need to cry. Scream and yell at the wall if you need to. Kick something. Stomp like a 2 yr old having a temper tantrum.  Do what you need to do to release it.  Save the dishes if you can.

Circumstances that make me hurt and angry will come and go. The control that I do have is to take care of myself by constructively releasing the anger before all I have are paper plates.

I Love You, Riley.