Honesty in Loss

Of course I cannot speak for everyone who’s lost someone but as we enter the holiday season I am confronted with the reality that this time last year my son was living and breathing and the year before both of my sons were on this earth with us.

I want people to know without having to tell them, that I have 5 children not only 3. But I don’t want to have to confront the awkward conversation that is, as one author describes, rushing forward to lessen the other person’s awkwardness at confronting my grief, my reality.

I want to be able to discuss my boys like other people talk about their children, not just as hallowed people who are no longer with us, like translucent papery ghosts. I want to say Quinn loved angel food cake, not in a weepy remembering way but just as a fact about your kid, how you intimately know what they love, hate, how they grew into the world. I want to talk about how Sean picked up lacrosse as a new sport in his senior year, not as some momentous thing but as an example of my quirky, energetic son who wanted to try everything in life. I don’t want them to be forgotten but I don’t want them to be just memories. I know that makes no sense to those who have not lived my reality.

I hate when people become so silent if I talk about my boys like other people discuss their children. I just want it to be a normal conversation, a mom talking about her kid, maybe something good, or annoying or funny. Normal parent. Normal kids. Untinged by tragedy and not overlaid by sadness.

I want to be forgiven for going on, smiling, laughing, being genuinely happy even with these monumental losses that tore my heart out last year. I don’t want to feel judged for continuing on, for wanting to live all the life my boys could not, did not.