Sharpest Corners

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Well, that’s not technically true. I have a few draft posts but I haven’t published anything in about a month. Every time I start, there’s a different thing I want to say and I can’t seem to commit to any one topic. They all have the same undercurrent though; variations on the fact that I’m still not all right.

I was motivated to write this after something someone said to me a few days ago. It reminded me again that most people seem to think I’m okay these days. Indeed, I’d say pretty much everyone assumes so except my husband and my grief counselor.

I’ve actually witnessed people be surprised when I say that Christopher still occupies my thoughts constantly and a couple of them have even momentarily forgotten that I lost him. (It’s okay. No one means any harm by it and my counselor tells me it’s a normal part of social interaction after the death of a loved one.)

It’s extremely hard to articulate why I will never be even close to okay again, but I’ll give it a shot. Let me take you back in time a bit.

Christopher was my third child so I was pretty well-versed in what it was like to be pregnant by the time he came around. Yet no matter how much experience you have, one thing that never changes is the internal and external pressure mothers face once they find out once they find out a baby is on the way.

Even though my previous pregnancies were textbook perfect, I was still filled with worry that something could go wrong. I was concerned whether I’d have enough energy to manage all nine months since I already had two boys under two, one still nursing. Would I get enough sleep? Was my nutrition sufficient? Was the baby healthy? Would the baby stay healthy? I worried about the same things that millions of mothers have thought about over the centuries. Such pressure.

The external pressures were no easier. People were concerned about all kinds of things; how I’d juggle pregnancy with two small children, whether I should work through this pregnancy as I had with the first two, should I continue nursing through the pregnancy (yeah, that one especially was nobody’s business). Even my otherwise wonderful doctor gave his standard advice that I shouldn’t sign any contracts in my “long-term hormonal state.” Pregnant women can’t be trusted to make good decisions, you see. More pressure.

Do you notice the thread running through all these concerns?

If anything happened to the baby before birth, it would be my fault. After all, I was solely responsible for its care and nurturing for the entire pregnancy. It was my job to grow a fully-formed and healthy baby, protecting it from harm at all costs. No one could do it for me and I could not fail. Pressure.

Once Christopher was born, he nursed exclusively for a long time so it continued to be my duty to keep him fed and healthy. I stayed home with the children so the primary responsibility fell on me to keep our new infant and older boys safe, clothed, and happy. (Mind you, I was glad to do all of this. No complaints!) Pressure.

Added to all this was the fact we were living in a Midwestern suburb in the early 2000s. Much like housekeeping and cooking, back then (and now, sadly) children were considered “women’s work” and everything about them from manners to reading ability was filtered through the lens of how well the mother was doing her job. (Let me be clear, their father was involved in their lives but also worked a great deal so I could stay home with the kids.) Pressure.

It felt like Christopher’s very existence from the moment of conception depended on every decision I made and nothing else. Failure was, as the saying goes, not an option. Pressure.

When I became a single parent, I went under a microscope the likes of which I’d never expected. Family, friends, and complete strangers had opinions. Everything I did was up for discussion and, many times, push back. The pressure to get everything right or face blame was, well, rough to say the least. At times, the bar was impossible to meet. (I realize this is a common scenario for single parents and not unique to me.) Pressure.

Despite my best efforts and intentions, of course I sometimes failed as a mother. However, my mistakes clearly weren’t unforgivable. As I’ve said before, we were talk-multiple-times-a-day close until the day Christopher died. Even so, I’ve been blamed for Christopher’s unhappiness in life, as well as blamed for his decision to take his life.

These factors combined — the stress to be a perfect mother, the sudden loss, the blame — add up to some pretty profound pressure. Is it any wonder I can’t just flip a switch after 18 years of it and suddenly be okay?

One thing I’ve learned from parent support groups is that the vast majority of mothers struggle with the same issue I do. People assume we’re doing better than we actually are. It’s a near-universal expectation I hear over and over from other moms. Some have even been told to “get over it.” (I haven’t, which is good because I’d probably be immediately charged with assault.)

Don’t think we don’t want to though, because this headspace causes a lot of collateral damage. Even though I try not to let it, the protracted grief has affected my health, my friendships, and my relationships with people close to me. It’s changed a lot about the way I think and the way I approach things. I guess it’s safe to say it’s fundamentally changed me.

I’d been cautioned by people who know about such things that the second year of grief is, in some ways, worse than the first. Unfortunately, that’s turning out to be true as I learn to confront and deal with a lot of things I’d set aside while white-knuckling it through the first year.

I’m working on setting boundaries to better protect myself. I’m trying to channel what little energy I have into things that bear fruit and to just let go of things that won’t. I’m trying to find little pockets of not-sadness wherever I can (expecting happiness is still elusive).

I also have to prepare myself to deal with another aspect of Christopher’s death in the next few weeks that will crush me all over again, but there’s no way around it. The only thing that would make it marginally easier is also out of reach, so it’s just basically pounding another nail into my heart.

I’m not under the external pressure I was during earlier times in my life. However, now there’s a self-imposed pressure to just get on with life since virtually everyone else has. But I’m not there yet and don’t know when I will be.

I’m just so tired.

Well, I made it through January and I’m into the second year of grieving the loss of my son. Granted, it was by the skin of my teeth, but the important thing is I made it.

On the heels of my first Thanksgiving and Christmas since Christopher died, and his burial at sea on Christmas Eve, I also survived last month; (what would have been) his 19th birthday and also the first anniversary of his death.

I received so many kind wishes on Twitter (of all places), and really need to answer the individual messages. Please bear with me, I will get to them. Even though it’s now the first week of February, my brain still hasn’t caught up with the calendar and I kind of feel like I’m free falling.

It’s been an interesting few weeks, though. Not grand, but not all together awful either. Dare I say, they’ve been a bit…healing? I’d suppressed more thoughts, feelings, and emotions over the past year about losing Christopher than I realized, and they all came at me like a tidal wave recently. It was necessary though. I needed to get there eventually.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking to my psych doctors in the last month (yay, I have two now. sigh) to sort out where I go from here. You see, I spent a fair amount of the first year of Christopher’s absence being very quiet and still mentally, and sometimes physically, because I was in denial that he is really gone. Part of me thought if I sat quietly enough and just waited, he would come back to me (grief makes no sense).

Obviously, that didn’t happen. But what it did do was leave too much space for life to just happen to me. Life happened at me. I was too passive because I was busy conserving my energy for Christopher’s eventual return (grief is a mind fuck) and kept everything else at bay. I was also too afraid to advocate for myself for fear even more would be taken from me (I’m serious, it’s a real mind fuck). Boundaries were crossed, needs were unmet, because I was unable to speak up or speak out.

Year two of my life without Christopher won’t be that way. I’m quietly, little by little, getting stronger so I can advocate for myself better. Both inwardly, to shut down the thoughts that tell me I’ll never smile and mean it again, and outwardly, to not smile when I don’t mean it.

I’m still so very broken, but I’m learning to exist within it instead of fighting against it because that’s exhausting and doesn’t get me anywhere. That’s not to say I’m not legit exhausted anyway. Between the side effects of the medication cocktail I’m on, the constant weight of missing my son, nightmares that arrive like clockwork, and still feeling like a raw, exposed nerve, it’s not possible for me to ever sleep enough. So actively pushing back against grief instead of just rolling with it is a senseless extra activity I just don’t need.

Anyway, I have a lot to talk about and I want to write about a few interesting things that have happened recently. Other things will stay between my grief counselor and me for now, and still others haven’t even been said aloud yet. All in good time.

My life may have changed in one night but it’s not going to get better in one more. I’m in it for the long haul.

One year ago today, my 18-year old son, Christopher, took his life. I’ve been dreading this day for months, and in the ramp up to it my grief has gotten substantially worse. I thought I might be able to today recount the events of January 25, 2019 but I simply can’t. That will have to be another post, another day.

My grief counselor asked me yesterday what I was most fearful of about today. I said I was worried I’d re-experience the entire trauma all over again and she warned me that was more than likely. Well, it’s mid-morning right now, several hours before I got the call Christopher was gone. I feel sicker with each passing minute.

As we did every day, I was texting and Snapchatting with Christopher all morning as he went about his day.. In the late morning, he texted me that a problem had come up and he wasn’t sure how to solve it. I assured him we would figure it out together and he said he’d call me later to work out the details. I told him that, in the meantime, I’d look into gathering some details so he could make an informed decision.

I texted him a bit later with some additional info, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t know at the time that he was dealing with a secondary situation that had cropped up. (Once again, the details of his story are not mine to tell.)

It was a Friday and I’d been working all day while all this was going on. Mid-afternoon, out of the clear blue sky, I got very cold, began shaking, couldn’t catch my breath, and threw up. I attributed it to a bad lunch or that I was coming down with something.

I became increasingly agitated over the next few hours, unable to concentrate on work. I was jittery, pacing. I had no idea why. Uncharacteristic of me, I began frantically trying to reach Christopher on the phone and over text. I messaged my husband that I was scared something was wrong.

It would be a couple more hours until Christopher’s body was found and couple more until I received the call he was dead. Working backwards through the timeline, I now know I became ill right around the time Christopher killed himself. I can’t explain it.

That’s all I can share about that day right now because it’s taking all my energy just to deal with the reality of this anniversary. It’s only 10:00 a.m. right now so in this re-experiecing hell I’m in at the moment, Christopher hasn’t died yet. I haven’t gotten the call yet. My life hasn’t blown up yet.

But it will.

It did.

The closer I get to the first anniversary of Christopher’s death, the harder it’s been to write even though I desperately want to. I feel like I’m in the path of a slow-living freight train with my feet glued to the tracks and my mind is so scattered that I can hardly track a thought.

I mentioned that on Twitter the other day and got the kindest response. “So write about Christopher. Bring him back to life for us.” Would that I could bring him back to life, but the message meant a lot because people rarely (if ever) ask me to talk about my son. That’s not an indictment, it’s just how it goes in these situations and it’s all right.

But, hey, since I’ve been asked, I’m gonna.

In the summer of 2018, Christopher was a few months shy of 17 and we were about to leave for Indianapolis to attend GenCon with Michael and his son. Just before we left, Christopher asked me if I would be willing to sign off on a waiver for him to get a tattoo while we were there.

Now, I have a ton of tattoos, so clearly I had no philosophical issue with this request. However, I also don’t think they should rushed into, what with being permanent and all. But I knew Christopher’s request wasn’t coming from a place of spontaneity. He had a reason for wanting it and the specific location where he wanted it placed.

Like other parts of Christopher’s story, the details of wanting a tattoo aren’t mine to tell. Suffice it to say, I understood it wasn’t an off the cuff request nor was it the first time it had come up. I agreed to find a place in Indy to take him while we were there. Together, we worked on the design and exact placement so he’d be all set when we arrived at the tattoo shop.

Christopher chose an image of an antlered deer with a forest in the background. He was an avid hunter, something I am most definitely not. Fortunately, he was also an ethical hunter, humanely killing only what he knew could be eaten without going to waste. The image held a lot of meaning for him, as well as representing an activity that was important to him for a variety of reasons.

What Christopher didn’t know at the time is that I’d been thinking about getting another tattoo, also in a specific location and for a specific reason. For years, I’d carried a very visible scar of a word someone carved into the back of my neck during an assault. I’d always worn clothing that covered it, not an easy task in the heat of Florida. It was time to reclaim my skin by marking it in a manner of my choosing.

The day before our tattoo outing, I told Christopher that I’d be getting inked right along with him, and why. We spoke a lot in the next day or so about the meanings behind our chosen tattoos and what it meant to each of us to be able to tell our own stories instead of people inferring whatever they wanted by looking at us.

Christopher got immense joy out of his tattoo. It suited him so well and he got compliments on it all the time. I can’t count the number of times he’d excitedly tell me about how “cool and badass” his peers thought it was. His tattoo made him so happy and I’m forever grateful that I was able to share the day he got it with him.

Christopher’s tattoo took on additional meaning after his death. A relative had a duplicate of it inked onto her ribcage and another relative wants to travel to Indianapolis to have the same one done by the same artist. My oldest son had a variation of it tattooed onto his leg in remembrance of his brother.

I see 10-point deer images everywhere I go these days. I know it’s simply confirmation bias, but I’ve decided to harmlessly assume it’s Christopher giving me a little wink and nod as I try to go about my day.

Now, here’s where the story comes full circle. That day in the tattoo shop, we both committed to images that would help us manage a past that made us who we are and remind us that we can go on, even when things seem insurmountable. You’d think that every time I look at the tattoo I got with Christopher on one of our last trips together would cause me a lot of pain. On the contrary.

Instead, it reminds me of the promise I made to myself the day I got it, the promise that has since become even more critical for me to remember. When I think of how I can best honor Christopher’s life and continue to plod on since his death, I recall the phrase he saw permanently etched on my body that hot summer day and try to live by those words for him.

If you’re a mother who’s reading this because you just lost a child to suicide and need support, my email address is at the bottom of this page. Feel free to contact me anytime.

I don’t presume to think that I have all the answers for mothers dealing with the loss of a child to suicide. I remember sitting at my computer in the days after Christopher died, typing random strings of words into Google while hoping to find advice from someone who’d been through this before me.

These are suggestions that worked for me but won’t apply to everyone. Use them as a starting point or don’t use them at all, whatever works for you. So here we go, in no particular order.

Find a Helper

You’re in shock, so make as few decisions as possible in the coming days. Unfortunately, some decisions can’t be avoided and will require immediate input, so having someone with you who’s slightly removed from the situation can be a big help. Now is a good time to ask a close friend, someone from your church, or another person you trust to act as a sounding board, gut check, and also keep track of the things you agree to with the funeral home and so on.

You’d be surprised at how quickly your brain leaves your body during a crisis like this. In the throes of sudden grief, you may think it’s a great idea to charter a plane to fly in family from across the country or forget that you’ve already contacted a funeral home. A companion who’s not acutely grieving can gently guide you away from making irrevocable decisions and keep a list of things you need to do or have already taken care of. I promise you, your brain will be like Swiss cheese and there will be times you won’t remember your own name.

If you and your child’s father aren’t together anymore, no matter how amicable you are toward each other, also ask this person to advocate for you during funeral arrangements. Since I was in a different state than where Christopher’s funeral was being held, I wasn’t part of the arrangements. As such, I was not included in any of the photo collages or videos his father’s side of the family assembled, consulted on funeral details, or represented as his mother beyond standing in the receiving line. A companion can make sure you’re kept in the loop with any planning or decisions that are happening.

Rally the Troops

Very strongly consider contacting your doctor to request anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication, or to adjust doses of what you’re already taking. They can take a while, sometimes weeks, to kick in and you’ll want to cushion the fall that’s coming your way after the funeral is over and everyone has gone back to their lives. You can always stop taking meds later if you find you don’t need or want them but, please, take this proactive step to take care of future you.

You may also want to find a grief counselor to talk to. You’re going to grapple with a lot of thoughts and feels in the coming days, weeks, and months so unload it onto a trained professional who can make suggestions on how to cope. I suppose any psychologist, psychiatrist, or social worker will do but seeing someone with formal training in grief counseling was, I believe, the reason I made it through this first year in an upright and seated position.

Feel How You Feel

Give yourself permission to feel how you feel and practice self-care. In the coming weeks you’re going to be devastated, scared, furious, despondent, morose, snappish, zombie-like, weepy, disbelieving, and a host of other emotions you didn’t even know you had in you. You’ll probably apologize a lot to everyone around you all the time for however you’re feeling or acting in a given moment. If they don’t tell you it’s okay to feel whatever way you feel, then I’m telling you. It’s okay.

Along those lines, you are not required to tell anyone anything unless you want to. You will be asked some mightily stupid questions in the days following your child’s suicide and you don’t have to answer a single one. Random people may ask how they died, if you had any idea they were in crisis, if they left a note, and even ask some really thoughtless things you won’t believe people could question a grieving mother about.

You don’t owe anyone any explanation whatsoever about your child or the circumstances around their death. As women, we are socialized to be polite and sweet and respond to everyone. I’m telling you here and now, fuck that. Some people may honestly not realize how insensitive they are, others are so nosy that they just don’t care. Either way, you don’t have to respond to any questions that you don’t want to answer. You have the permission of every grieving mother who came before you to just ignore them, change the subject, or say you’d rather not answer.

Have an Escape Route

At the funeral, at gatherings afterward, and at every get together you host or go to until… well, maybe forever, have an escape plan. You may never need or want to unexpectedly get away from it all for a bit but it’s good to have the option.

Find a sanctuary in your home where you can retreat when everyone and everything is too overwhelming. Ask the funeral director ahead of time where you can hide if you get overwhelmed (trust me, they’ve heard it before and want to help). If you’re at someone’s house or in a public place, pre-prepare a little white lie (or be honest) so you can escape to your car to just breathe and be alone.

Brace Yourself

Prepare yourself for sensory overload. Lights may be too bright, people may talk too loud, ordinary sounds may be too much for you. Hell, people may be too much for you. To this day, I carry earplugs everywhere I go because I’m still overly sensitive to loud noise and my startle reflex remains in overdrive.

Accept that people will disappoint you. Sometimes it will be the people you least expect. Following Christopher’s death, a group of people I interacted for years with over a shared interest showed a breathtaking and repeated lack of empathy for my immediate family that dumbfounds me to this day. If something similar happens to you, try not to dwell on it. Conserve and spend your energy on remembering your wonderful child and on managing your grief over your loss.

Accept that your relationships will change. Some temporarily, some permanently. Some will fade away, some will strengthen, and some will heal. It’s part of the process. It’s true that you really learn who you can count on during a crisis.

Accept that you will change. As every grief professional I’ve ever talked to or read says, you will never get over your loss. You will only learn to live in your new world. Not all the changes will be bad, though, given the right lens to view them through.

For instance, I have always had a deathly, panic-inducing fear of flying that all but disappeared after Christopher died. Now when I fly, I figure if the plane doesn’t crash, then yay. If it does, then I will no longer be in the constant pain that squeezes my soul every waking minute. I’m sure the basket of anti-anxiety and anti-depressants I take have something to do with it as well.

Of course, not all personal changes are welcome. My tolerance of small talk is astonishingly thin and when parting company with people I care about I’m overly terrified that I’ll never see them again.

Do Only What You Can

I’ll leave you with this final piece of advice. Don’t force yourself to do more than you’re able. Some activities can’t be avoided, like work or caring for other children in the family. But don’t try to resume canasta night, learn German, or whatever other things you did in your free time before your child died.

Grief is more exhausting than you ever thought possible. Some days merely getting up is a feat in itself, leaving you precious little energy to do more than the absolute minimum the rest of the day. Be good to yourself.

You’re Not Alone

I’ve learned a lot over the past (almost) year since Christopher took his life. I’ve learned about me, about others, and about how to navigate the worst experience of my life. My journey will be different from yours and my suggestions may not work for you. That’s cool. I’m merely trying to offer some support and guidance from someone who’s been where you are.

Whether you’re a mom who’s lost a child recently or ages ago, my heart is with you. We will never know the joy we had before our children left us, but I hope you find a small measure of peace. You may feel alone, but you are not alone. There is a network of mothers just like you ready to support you for as long as you need and listen as you share memories of the child who left you too soon. Come find us when you’re ready.

Today would have been Christopher’s 19th birthday. I’ve been dreading the arrival of this day since he took his life because I hear it’s a doozy. So far, I’m kind of numb.

When each of my boys turned 18, I wrote them a letter about what their life has meant to me, what it’s been like to watch them grow up into young men, and what I hope the future holds for them. I also talked a little about what the day of their birth was like.

All of my children were planned homebirths with a nurse and doctor in attendance. All three went off without a hitch but each had their own silly stories attached. When I was in labor with oldest, Austin, there was a media crew in attendance (long story) and a decorated cake of a guy in a mustache (even longer story). Austin was born a long, skinny string bean with energy the likes I’ve never seen from a newborn before or since.

Labor with my middle son, Zane, involved me dipping in and out of a lukewarm hot tub for pain relief and watching Blues Clues with Austin. Miraculously, my aunt happened to be in town and was there for his birth. I rewarded her by unexpectedly throwing up all over her. Zane arrived in this world laughing and never stopped. Infant giggly Zane was a precursor to the always-laughing Zane who would keep me in stitches for hours.

Christopher’s labor was by far the fastest, as third babies usually are. He had his own agenda that day, as would turn out to be his personality for the rest of his life.

The nurse arrived in the middle of a snowstorm to see how my labor was going and once we got to a certain point, she’d call the doctor to come out and attended the birth. Christopher must have sensed the intended timeline because he decided time waits for no newborn. He didn’t give the doctor time to arrive or, to be honest, even me much warning. One minute I was talking to the nurse, the next minute I was looking into Christopher’s big brown eyes.

I wrote in his 18th birthday letter:

The day you were born, you opened your eyes, looked around, and went right back to sleep. Figuring you’d wake up soon to spend time with us, we laid you in a play pen in the middle of a noisy living room filled with your brothers, a dog, cats, family, the doctor, a nurse, and a ringing phone with people calling to say congratulations. You slept through it all for hours! I knew then that you would grow up to be someone who always did their own thing and kept their cool no matter how wild things were around him.

My prediction was true. Christopher was the person the expression “marches to the beat of his own drum” was modeled upon.

I wanted to mark Christopher’s 18th birthday last year in a special way so I ordered him an 18×24 print of what the night sky looked like at our house on the night he was born. It included his name, birthdate and time, and the coordinates of the town where he was born.

I wrote in his letter:

This gift to you is what I saw when I looked up to the night sky 18 years ago. My world changed because you were finally here. Words can’t express how much I love you.

The poster and card now sits with the rest of Christopher’s possessions in my office closet. I have no idea what I’ll eventually do with everything, but for now it’s safely on the top shelf.

A couple months after Christopher died, I had his name, birthdate and time, and the coordinates of the town where he was born tattooed on my inner forearm. It seemed somehow fitting to commemorate on my body the day he came into this world and the last gift I ever gave him.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel on the day of Christopher’s first birthday without him. The first thought I had when I opened my eyes this morning was to text him. Let me tell you, remembering you can’t never gets any easier.

The day of your child’s birth you think about what their life will be like, the things they’ll accomplish, and who they’ll grow up to be. You never, ever think about how you’ll mourn their death.

This wasn’t supposed to be how I celebrated Christopher’s 19th birthday, sitting broken and trying to type while may eyes are blurry with tears. I grieve for him as well as for Austin and Zane, who miss their brother terribly. I grieve for me. I grieve for all that could have been and all I wish had been.

But Christopher showed me who he was on the day he was born. He arrived with utter disregard for everyone waiting for him and the doctor who was racing through a blizzard to be there. He lived his first day of life peacefully snoozing despite the chaos around him. From his first breath he was his own person who did his own thing.

So in life, as in death. Christopher also left this world with utter disregard for the people around him. He lived his last day tuning out the chaos around him. With his last breath, he was his own person who did his own thing.

Christopher may never have another birthday but I will never stop acknowledging them as if he could. There will be no gifts or cake, but I will always spend the 9th of January thinking about how he came into this world and the absolute joy it was to be his mother, rather than dwell on how he left.

Happy birthday, my son. I will always see you in the night sky.

One year ago today began as a normal morning. I had no idea it would be the last time I would see Christopher alive.

I goofed off with my son for a while that morning, while he cleaned up a weight bench and barbell set he wanted to use. We talked a bit about how we would spot each other during bench presses and what kinds of friendly competitions we could set up to encourage each other’s progress.

We were making plans for him to borrow my car later that day to run some errands when his phone rang. I left him to it and went to my office to start work. A few hours and several phone calls later, Christopher asked me if I could drive him to the airport later that evening. There was something he needed to do.

Out of respect for the privacy of Christopher and the people involved, I’m not going into any further detail about the circumstances that called him out of state. He was troubled about leaving, but always put other people first and his mind was made up. I was troubled as well, but I supported his decision to go.

We had a great chat as Michael drove us across the bridge leading to Tampa’s main airport. Christopher apologized profusely for skedaddling on such short notice, but I told him I understood. We pulled into the airport’s parking garage and headed for the elevator, Christopher toting a large duffle bag filled with things he tossed in it at the last minute.

I pulled out my phone and took a picture of us as we waited for the elevator. It would be the last photo I’d ever take of the two of us.

Although Christopher was mere days away from turning 18, I took advantage of his status as a minor to escort him to the gate. He was restless as we waited for the plane so we grabbed something to eat. He wanted to buy a trinket for a girl he’d been talking to (which I feel strangely compelled to say had absolutely nothing to do with where he was going) so we went into a gift shop. I watched while he pored over every kitchy object on the shelves, eventually selecting a small glass bottle filled with sand and tiny seashells and “Tampa” emblazoned across it.

He never had a chance to give it to its intended recipient. Someone handed it back to me at Christopher’s funeral.

We wandered back to the gate and sat down with Michael. Christopher spotted a service member across the aisle and struck up a conversation with him about how he planned to enlist in another month or so. My stomach clenched at the idea, but I’d support that too when the time came.

A bit later, Christopher’s flight was called and I went to stand in line with him, walking next to him until I could go no further. That might make me sound like a neurotic, hovering parent, but please understand. I didn’t stick next to Christopher because I didn’t think he was capable of standing in line by himself. I did it because I knew he was troubled and I wanted to be with him in support for as long as possible. Like I’ve said before, we were very close.

Anyway, we said good bye, hugged, and I told him I loved him. He promised to text me as soon as he landed. Christopher hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, held his boarding pass out to be scanned, and headed down the gangway.

I stood looking at the back of his head. Before he turned the corner, Christopher took one last look back at me and waved. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. I waved back and he disappeared down the ramp. I turned to Michael and immediately started crying because I knew he was struggling with some things and it cut me to the core.

I was quiet as we drove home. When I pulled out my phone to check Christopher’s flight status, I noticed the picture we’d taken at the elevator. The pain, sadness, and frustration was plain as day on his face. Meanwhile, we’d left home so suddenly for the airport that I hadn’t had time to put on makeup. I’d been secretly crying as we drove so my face was blotchy and my eyes were puffy. We made quite a pair.

I couldn’t have known that day was the last time I would ever see Christopher alive. I had no idea what the next couple of weeks would bring and finality with which they would end.

I don’t dwell on how different things might have turned out if his flight had been cancelled or if we’d gotten a flat on the way to the airport. It won’t change anything. Instead, I think about the moments we shared in the car, they time we spent in the gift shop, and the last look I had at my beautiful boy’s face.

The picture we took at the elevators haunts me because the pain is so evident in both of our faces, but for different reasons. I hope beyond hope that Christopher is at peace now. The expression on his face in the last picture or as he looked back over his shoulder on the gangway is not how I choose to remember him, but rather his endless smiles and the cocked eyebrow he pulled when teasing someone.

That’s the face I see every time I look at the clock today and think about what I was doing one year ago. I’m tormented today in particular because I remember that day in exquisite detail. The closer it gets to 7:00 pm, the closer it gets to Christopher boarding the plane. The closer it gets to his birthday soon after. The closer it gets to the last time I heard his voice, his last text, his last breath.

But I’ll get through this day, just as I have the last 365. One hour, sometimes one minute, at a time. For the sake of my older boys, I have no choice.

Decades ago, I went to visit my then-husband’s extended family whom I’d never met before and who he barely knew. The couple was our parent’s age and they’d lost their daughter to illness in her late teens.

They’d invited us to spend the night and when they showed us where we were sleeping, I involuntarily shivered. It was their daughter’s room, which had remained untouched since she died. A large color portrait of her sat on the dresser, eyes following us all over the room.

Late that night, we whispered under the covers about how odd it was that the parents had left their daughter’s room unchanged even though she’d died so long ago. Holy shit, I get it now.

Just before he died, Christopher was cleaning off a weight set of mine he was planning to use but never got around to finishing the job. The spray bottle and rag stayed exactly where they were for months. Christopher’s toiletries remain in one of our bathroom showers. I still have an old shopping list meant for the garbage.

I was talking with my middle son the other day about the mountains of Christopher’s belongings that we don’t know what to do with. Worn out t-shirts, frayed jeans, ball caps acquired who knows when. Things that would ordinarily be destined for Goodwill are now as valuable as spun gold to us.

Between the stuff I have here, the things packed in boxes at his father’s house, and random belongings at my mother’s house, Christopher’s possessions span three states. None of us can bear to get rid of anything, even coming up on a year after his death.

As you can imagine, it’s not uncommon to cling to whatever scraps of your child’s memory that you can find. I remember begging my son Zane for any of Christopher’s dirty laundry shortly after he died because I wanted to smell his scent one last time.

Marie Kondo would have a field day with me if she opened the closet in my office.

“Does this backpack spark joy?”

No.

“Do these shirts bring you happiness?”

No.

“What about this box of items?

No.

“Can you give thanks to all these things and let them go?”

Get out.

On good days, I can reach into my office closet for copier paper or whatever, spy Christopher’s stuff, think a good thought, and go on my way. Other days, it takes me several minutes to work up the courage to even open the closet door.

The sheer brutality of the grief that’s attached to Christopher’s possessions is astonishing. However, the only thing worse than keeping them around would be letting them go. I don’t know what I’ll eventually do with everything besides keep it forever, but I’m not worried about it. For now, it gives me comfort to have Christopher’s things near me.

But sorry, Marie, it brings me no joy.

A few hours from now, the calendar turns to 2020 and the single worst year of my life will finally draw to a close. You’d think I’d be relieved, and I am. Yet, in some ways, I’m afraid to see it end.

You see, once the New Year’s ball drops, Christopher will have died “last year.” That sounds like last century to me and puts more distance than ever between the last time I saw him and the current time on my watch.

I’ve lived every day in the hope that Christopher will come back to me. Imagining this has all been one long literal nightmare that I’ll wake up from if someone shakes me hard enough.

But now it’s been a year. A traditional milestone that marks the passing of time. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, graduation to the next school grade, workaversaries, and dozens of other traditions at the one-year mark. It’s exciting!

“Another year older!”

“You’re in fifth grade now!”

“You’ve had the corner office for a year!”

Unless, of course, a year marks the time since a bad thing happened. Breakups, divorce, hurricanes, loss of a pet.

“She left you a year ago. Get over it.”

“That storm was 12 months ago and nothing’s been rebuilt.”

“Buster’s been gone a year. Get a new dog.”

Saying Christopher died “last year” or “a year ago” implies it’s ancient history. That I’ve nearly completed a full cycle of grieving and I’m good now. Naw. That’s not how this works.

The first year has been all about learning how to live life as a mother who lost her child. You have to learn from exposure, not by reading about it in a book, because every mother’s experience is different.

Whether you want to or not, you find out about things like:

• Seemingly innocuous holidays that may knock you off your feet. Halloween.
• New TV shows or movies you can’t watch without having them vetted first for landmines. Knives Out? No clue.
• Favorite movies you can never watch again. Jesus Christ Superstar.
• Closets in your house you can’t open because they contain your child’s possessions or gifts he died before you could give him. My office.
• Foods you never want in your fridge again. Almond milk.
• Songs that make you hyperventilate on the spot. Moonlight Sonata.
• Locations that make you want to retch. A building in Tampa I’ll probably never set foot in again.

That’s just a few off the top of my head. There are so many more things to learn each day that first year. It’s like the worst boot camp imaginable but you can’t tap out.

I think I’ve lost the thread here somewhat. The point is, I don’t want to say Christopher took his life “last year” because I’m not done dealing with this year yet. I’m nowhere near as okay as I expected myself to be and, perhaps wrongly, perceive others expect me to be.

However, like Christopher himself, I have to let 2019 go. I want to and need to, but I feel like I’m not ready to take the next step into the month of January. After all, that’s really when the shit hit the fan.

So, I guess it pretty much boils down to fear. I’ve hated 2019 but learned to live with it. 2020 is not going to start pretty and I’m just afraid of what lies ahead. There’s nothing to be done for it, though. I’ll get through it because I have no choice.

Dammit, though. I’m tired.

I’m back on shore after Christopher’s burial at sea and, let me tell you, that was a lot harder and also a lot more therapeutic than I expected. I even managed to give some elevator passengers a pretty unfortunate ride they won’t forget for a while.

Burials at sea must take place in international waters under very particular conditions. The ship’s Captain identifies different windows of opportunity and Guest Services does all the coordinating. We got a call Christmas Eve morning asking if 10:00 a.m. would work for us. There would be a few other options during the trip but I was good with taking the first one.

That day was a sea day, meaning there were no ports of call and no one was getting off the ship. While other passengers were donning bathing suits or scarfing down bagels at the buffet, I was prepping myself to let a piece of Christopher leave me forever.

I started crying before I even left the stateroom but still had to get myself to Guest Services to meet with the crew member who would take us below decks. Standing at the elevator banks, I saw the glass elevator descend to our floor and heard the jovial passengers before the door even opened. Boy, did I kill that mood.

The pair of us stood there in black, me clutching this ridiculous nylon lunch bag and a wad of wet Kleenex. Everyone stopped talking and we stepped inside. It was the longest elevator ride for me and, I suspect for them as well. You could have heard a pin drop. As we arrived at our floor, I muttered an apology to everyone for making it the most awkward elevator trip ever, which I think mortified Michael.

It took a few minutes to work out the last-minute details so I sobbed against an ATM while hoping no one needed to make any cash withdrawals. For context, the Guest Services desk on cruise ships are smack in the middle of the busiest area of the ship so passengers can find it easily. I’ve had some strange experiences in my life, but cry-hiccuping into a tissue with around 300 merry holiday revelers walking by is a first for me.

We were escorted to the designated with the coordinator dude and not one, but two, security officers. Cruise lines don’t play when overly emotional passengers are involved. They flanked me the whole way there and back. I understood, though, and they were very kind.

As we entered the crew decks, our guide radioed ahead to clear the way so we didn’t stumble on clutches of workers horsing around, thinking they were out of the sight of passengers. I guess a couple of workers didn’t hear the message because they seemed surprised to see us come around the corner as they squeegeed the floor of a maintenance area. They were basically like

We were taken to a small platform about 100 feet above the waterline that’s typically used for lookouts and such. They told us to take all the time we needed and stepped back inside. Suddenly it was just me, the water, and a really shitty thing I needed — but didn’t want — to do.

Michael handed me the biodegradable urn, which I’d held before. Only this time it was heavier. I remember asking him why it was so heavy. So much heavier! Mercifully, he didn’t answer.

After all the planning that had gone into this, I realized I couldn’t go through with it. I was supposed to give a part of my son to the ocean, but all I selfishly wanted was to keep every last particle of him to myself. I’d already lost his life in mine, how could I voluntarily give up anything else?

I kept saying over and over, “I can’t, I can’t…” I can’t do this. I can’t let him go.

For days after Christopher died, I also walked around in a daze saying, “I can’t, I can’t…” I can’t do this. I can’t live without him.

Nearly a year later, the words haven’t changed but the meaning behind them had expanded. I have to live without him and I have to let this small part of him go.

It took me a long time to come to peace with what I’d come there to do. I had to remind myself that Christopher made his choice and there was no alternative but to respect it. To honor it. To honor him.

Christopher loved our cruises together. Christopher loved me, and I love him. Our DNA is forever intertwined, even in the ashes I held to my chest like a life preserver. We would take this part of the journey together.

I took a last look at the inscription on the urn — the last private message we will ever have between us — opened my hands, and watched it fall into the ocean.

I yelled. I stamped my foot. I clutched at air, finally finding Michael’s hand. I watched the urn drift away from us, floating atop the water and finally dipping under forever.

One more long walk back through the crew quarters, one more awkward elevator ride, and I was back in the room. I don’t remember much about the next few hours. I know I ate something but I can’t remember what it was. I remember that everything seemed flat and grey, yet somehow overstimulating at the same time. Everything hurt.

The coordinator came to our stateroom a couple of days later with a lovely folio. It contained a picture of the ship and a certificate signed by the captain that includes the coordinates of where we were when I dropped the urn overboard. That meant a lot.

In the end, l’m glad I didn’t back out. I even think the timing, Christmas Eve, was a bit serendipitous. This holiday season will suck forevermore because Christopher will never celebrate it with us again. But he and I got to spend a little time together after all, even if it was a year late.

Borrowing something someone said to me later that day:

Fair winds and following seas, Christopher. I love you forever.