December 21st-28st ...Survival

Dec. 21

As we approach Christmas, the intensity of my sadness seems to be increasing as is my worry about Doug. All I keep thinking is that this just simply shouldn't be...it is not supposed to be happening this way...something is terribly wrong....Our world -my world and everyone else's world -- will never be safe again -- was it ever?? My son, my baby, died at the age of 14 on a lacrosse field warming up with Pittsford Varsity Lacrosse players. Jeff's biggest dream was to play lacrosse with his brother -- and he did -- he played the exact position as his brother and he played at the same time and together Doug and he had an assist and a goal. I can still remember the announcer saying "Milano-Johnson to Milano-Johnson".

...In one instance, life as you know it changes completely and you can never ever go back to where it was before. It scares me to think about Doug - and about Jim --how will any of us survive this?

Dec. 26

My niece Christina sent me a CD with some songs on it - one of the songs is "Held" by Natalie Grant. It is unbelievably beautiful - written specifically, so it seems, to me, for us mothers who are experiencing the death of one of their children...

"This is what it means to be held. How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive." ... "How it feels ...when the sacred is torn from your heart and you survive."


Dec. 27

I got an email several days ago. It starts with "while I wasn't brave enough to post on your blog, I really feel like I have a special story about Jeff". The writer is Jeff's age, a teenager who describes her last few years -- how horrendous they were and how they made her give up hope completely. She describes her plan for doing herself in. How she was going to do it -- who she planned on visiting as she prepared to say her final goodbye. Her final goodbye was to take place the night Jeff died. She goes on to tell me of how she heard of Jeff's injury, how she thought it must have been nothing bad...how she heard of Jeff being in a coma ...and how she heard that Jeff had died. She never executed her plan because of Jeff's death. "The night when he got hurt, I saw him everywhere, this might sound odd but I swear he was there with me." Jeff continues to be by her side -- enabling her to address some serious mental health and physical problems -- Jeff continues to be her reason for living...She thanked me for my "wonderful son."

I simply can't believe the courage this young lady must have had to write to me never mind live through her crisis. I am happy that Jeff is helping her -- and I know he is as he is helping me and his brother, father and step-father (to be).

December 28th

But I continue to feel devastated by Jeff's loss. Barbara asked me today how my Christmas was and I told her it was ok -- which is my way of saying I survived it. My heart ached for Jeff -- and my heart ached for Doug not having Jeff here with him opening gifts -- and my heart ached when I saw Lauren the night before Christmas cuz this is the first year in a long long time that I didn't have to take Jeff out to buy a gift for Lauren...meaning it is the first year since early grade school that Lauren did not receive a gift from Jeff.

I bought a book for Christmas called "90 Minutes in Heaven". The author was pronounced dead by EMTs for 90 minutes after which his heart starting beating again. He writes about what he remembered of those 90 minutes. I am reading the part where he is in continual pain (this lasted for months following his car accident) and he yearned for the beautiful afterlife he had had a taste of-- for even during that short a period of time...his experience was indescribable. I now know that I had heaven on earth. Doug and Jeff together were my heaven on earth. As teens, every time I observed from a distance their wrestling and hitting on each other I smiled cuz I knew that that is the way guys/brothers express themselves and it warmed my heart. (Then when I came to and they were still doing it and Jeff was yelling Mom! even though he started it -- I was thrown into action trying to get them to stop.) What I would do for those times again...

Next Christmas I hope to talk to one or two of my new friends - friends I have grown closer to during this next year -- Mothers who have experienced what I have experienced...the death of their child. Because I want these mothers to offer me a knowing and listening ear and me to be able to offer to them the same ..to make this pain slightly more bearable for us both.

Having said that, I now know that I simply would not be celebrating this Christmas if it were not for my unbelievable loving friends and family -- who never received a Christmas card from me -- but who together offer me hope for tomorrow...and for that I am forever grateful.