We Don't Get It

The past three weeks have been horrific. The pain I am now feeling as the school year begins and I have noone to bring for school supplies the first day of sophomore year-- added to the bittersweet feelings of Doug going to college on Thursday --feels totally incapacitating. I want to roll up into a ball and just stay like that the rest of my life.

And it is precisely at this point when I am beginning to truly "feel" the death of my 14 year old son-- in its entirety -- that the cards have stopped coming, along with the emails, along with the calls. I spent some time talking to a psychologist friend of mine and she thinks it is because of us not being comfortable at all with people dying. Add to that the fact that Jeff died at such a young age and that we are all traumatized by the sudden death of Jeff or any child -- well that combination scars the shit out of people. People are responding to Jeff's death like sadly I feel like I responded to Seth's death. I just didn't get it. Now I do. I wanted to distance myself from Jody, Steve and Seth because I simply could not bare to imagine the pain Jody, Seth's mom, felt after her only son died. And I couldn't --didn't want to believe -- it really happened because if something like this could happen to someone I knew, someone I loved, it could happen to me. Then there's the feeling of helplessness - how could I possible help Jody when her loss was so mammouth? What could I say or do to make her feel better?

What I didn't realize with Jody and what some people I know don't realize with me -- (and others thank God do) is that simply doing kind things often -- sending cards, emailing me indicating concern, calling and telling me how much you care or leaving messages with smooches for me, telling me how much you are thinking about or praying for me, buying me animal crackers and Lauras, hugging me and singing hello to me each morning when I go through the door and get into work -- all those things are the ONLY THINGS that matter to me -- right after Jeff's death and now. All of those things occurring often -- that's what truly counts -- not just now, following Jeff's death, but long before and long long after it. And those things matter to not just me-- but to everyone. And if you do this for others -- regardless of what you don't do or don't say, that in and of itself, a simple act of kindness or love, is enough to get people through the most painful of pains.