Letter from Grief

Dear Tamara,

I am so sorry you have experienced me full force.  I am the most painful when a parent loses a child.  I am relentless, ever present and I shred your heart to pieces.  I specialize in breaking you wide open to change you forever.

I know you hated me at first.  You plunged soul first in a deep cyclone of despair, grasping to walls that were not there. Your hope deteriorated to death. You begged to be with your son, Logan, to make sure he was taken care of and loved in the after-life.  You would have taken his place in a second to be the dead one.  I know it’s unnatural for a child to die before his mother.

Here is the undeniable truth Tamara.  There is no escaping me.

You can drown in alcohol, exercise every day, run races, climb mountains, work like crazy, buy things you don’t need, get rid of nearly all belongings, eat too little, eat too much, find love in others, escape in spiritualism, plunge into religion, launch a world-saving-like cause,  and be the ultimate doer of good in your son’s honor.

Until you deal with me, these are nothing more than escape routes, no matter how destructive, wonderful or noble they may seem.

I am like water from the fiercest of hurricanes.  No dam of distractions is mighty enough to hold me back.

Bottle me up, and you will burst.  Let me go, and you will flow with me.

You are cried out and often numb, almost not believing that you are childless. You stumble in your thoughts because I take up brain space when you attempt to put me in a box on a shelf in the back of your mind.   No box can contain me.

Take me down from the shelf, open me up and let me wrap you in love you have for Logan.  Cry and cry hard.  Don’t be afraid to look at Logan’s pictures and belongings.  Remember him fully and honor him completely with no distractions.  Wallow in the quiet darkness.  Release my grief pain.

Let go and flow in your river of tears.  I am there with you, carried by your soul.

To feel me is to know the greatest gift of all – the love you have in this life and the next for Logan.

The pain will let up and the tears will subside to make room for hope and even moments of joy.  Through it all, I will be with you.

Love,

Grief