death of a child

I’m Back

/ djuanadreed / 1 Comment

I have been gone awhile from my blog. I would say it is because grief has it’s stages. When I began writing here, it was healing to talk about how I was feeling and to share my memories of Riley. There is a lot of navigating needed in grief.

I would like to think that I have always met my grief of losing Riley head on. I saw a counselor right off the bat. I have done a lot of self checking over the past 5 years by stepping in to a counselor’s office or just a self check making sure I was on the healthy side of what I was feeling and how I was tackling my grief each day.

One of the things you’ll notice people who have lost a child say is, “say his name.” You who have not lost a child wonder do you mention the lost child and wonder, when is it okay to mention them and when is it not? I actually hesitate myself with my own immediate family. How will they accept this feeling if I say it out loud? Is it a day they don’t want to go there? So I wonder too.

But I would say, without a doubt………I love hearing someone say Riley’s name. I don’t want you to forget Riley. I don’t want you to forget Riley’s story.

So why I haven’t been here writing is because it increasingly got harder to pull up memories and feelings at some point. It was better to avoid them to manage my life. Not that they aren’t always there because they always are. But to pour it out here on my blog, took time and thoughts and tears. So, I quit and stopped making time to write. That’s the honest gest of it.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Everyone grieves differently. Everyone’s stages may look different. Some of us move as fast as we can (I think men do that more than women) and some of us stay in each stage of grief longer or do a repeat of hanging on to some of those stages. It is what it is. As long as you aren’t being self destructive or are in trouble mentally, going through the grief of losing a child is personal.

Pacing in my apartment, surrounded with people the day Riley died, I kept thinking I can’t make this better. This isn’t ever going to be better. This pain is going to stay.  I was right.

For whatever reason, I’m ready to write again. I have so much to tell you. There’s been like years of speaking, a grandson born and more- much more. If you follow me on Facebook, you’re caught up. If you’re not caught up, hang on I’m fixing to tell you all about it!

Life’s a journey and I am taking one step at a time.

 

I Love You, Riley.

 

 

52 with a few more to go

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IMG_5083The reality of my age has hit hard this year. I just had a birthday and all of a sudden I am feeling weathered, withered, creaky with a swooshy brain. Parts of me have been creaking for a while now, but it’s just this new number that even sounds old. Recently when I complained about some strange symptom I had, my boyfriend said, “It’s because we are old.” Notice he says “we” as if that is going to lighten the shock of the statement. It doesn’t. He can be old. I don’t want to be old! I am not ashamed of the years I have lived, 52, or the year I was born, 1965. I just don’t like that old part. I mean, I don’t want to be.

Riley just had a birthday this past week on May 3rd. He would have been 21 years old. That day is a double whammy of a day since it is also the day that he died. It has been three years now. Nothing is different. It still hurts. It hurts bad.

The day before Riley’s birthday when I felt like I was holding my breath waiting for the day to be here and wishing it wasn’t coming, Tom was making dinner and I was standing in the kitchen keeping him company. We began talking about that being old thing again. He said he would go back ten years if he could- that it sounded good.

I said, “I wouldn’t because that would mean I might have to live ten years longer.” There, I said it out loud and then my tears leaked out.

Dealing with this pain, this grief that I am sentenced to for the rest of my life is real. To carry it longer sounds awful and too taxing. It’s a lot of work. I don’t know that I can do it any longer than the time that I have ahead of me now. Death is a welcome thought.

There is an end to it. I know that my friends that are carrying the grief of losing a child understand.  There is a finish line I look forward to when the pain will stop and better yet, I will be with Riley again. It is a white line with flags and I do not fear crossing it.

To survive this grief of losing a child, I must put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. I must! Or I will surely wither away.

I get up, I get dressed and I keep moving because I have a life to live right now.  After 3 years, I can smile at a joke. I can appreciate the beauty of my blue sky and green grass and blooming flowers here in Kentucky. I can feel challenged with my job and the pleasure of seeing the results of my efforts at it. I am thrilled with how my children are doing and how fast my grand-daughter is growing.

I sleep, I eat, I dance in the kitchen, I love and I am loved. I cry and I wipe my tears and I keep going. I bury my head under the pillow and I rest.  My heart hurts so bad when I think about him that it feels that it is going to quit. I keep going anyways. I must!

I have made it 52 years, I can make it 48 more years if that is what God gives me, but don’t ask me to do one more day than I am destined to. Riley had only 18 years. I’d easily give him all of my years, but I can’t. This is my life sentence – this grief. And I will handle the withering, weathering, creaking with a swooshing brain avoiding the word, “old” the best I can and I will keep getting up and keep moving…Because I must!

I Love You, Riley.

Tiny Hands that Hold my Heart

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img_2144My heart is full when I am with my granddaughter. At 10 months, she isn’t still unless she is in my lap while I read her a book or while she is drinking her bottle. Her tiny hands are soft, touching and reaching for things. Her eyes light up with wonder at things around her. You can see her mind twirling as she touches her Dad’s socked feet and in return, he makes a funny sound. She looks back at him and stares quizacally.IMG_0673.JPG She uses her tiny hands to throw a tennis ball and then crawls after it to do it again. Everything she picks up goes straight to her mouth. She puts her tiny hands down to move quickly across the floor with an army crawl that Braden also did as a baby.

To watch her kick her feet smiling and reaching for her Daddy whenever he enters the room, makes my heart swell. She loves her Daddy. She has him wrapped around her tiny finger. Just as it should be.img_0451

I savored every moment with her and Braden when I visited them both a month ago. Every moment with someone I love is precious since Riley died. You don’t realize the depth of time and experiences with someone until they are gone. I will not have even one more second with Riley and that hurts beyond measure.

Braylin Riley is a happy baby. I cannot help from believe it is because, in some crazy way, that she has Riley’s name in her name. Riley was a happy baby too.

On my wrist, I wear Riley’s WWRD (What Would Riley Do) bracelet every day. IMG_7346It never comes off. I hand bracelets out when I tell Riley’s story. His bracelets are on the wrists of many people of all ages. The bracelets represent hope to me. Hope that whoever has one will remember Riley’s story, will repeat the story of how he died on a first try of a drug and that they themselves will not try or continue to use drugs.

Each time that I held Braylin as I gave her a bottle, she played with the bracelet putting her fingers under it, pulling on it, twisting it around my wrist over and over with her tiny hands. Watching her play with the bracelet caused me to weep the first time it happened.

Braylin Riley was touching Riley and his memory. She won’t ever have the privilege of knowing him. I believe she would have loved him like we all do. I think she would have been drawn to his smile and warmth like we all were.  I am sad to know that she won’t ever have the chance to know her Uncle Riley though I know she will know of him.

I hope that Braylin will never come into contact with drugs. Reality is that she probably will. I fear what society will be like at that point when she will have to make the decision of trying a drug or not. I can’t worry about that today. We are far from that point. What I can do is savor the fact that Braylin is drawn to Riley’s bracelet as she plays with it with her tiny hands. She will see it there each time she sees me. She will play with the bracelet on her Daddy’s wrist, touch one on Aunt Bria’s wrist and tug on Grandpa Peterson’s too.

IMG_5272-XLRiley is here with us every day reminding us what life is and should be. His story reminds us how quickly without notice, life can be taken away by one decision. I miss my boy so very much. I am thankful there are tiny hands that touch a bracelet that reminds me of him and his unconditional love. Those tiny hands touch and hold my heart.

I love you, Riley.

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Broken Dishes

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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.