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.