When You Lose a Child

Today marks the three year anniversary of my son’s death.  These past three years were filled with over-whelming grief, much of it detailed in this blog. But they also held the seeds of eventual healing. Recently I began another effort; a website called The Grieving Path. It is intended as a place to begin the hardest journey a parent will take, that of grieving the loss of their child. If you have suffered the loss of a child, please visit http://grievingpath.com

Today is December 7th. 2010.  Mason died one year ago today.  We’ve reached the first anniversary of losing one of our own, one of our children.  There are names given to people left behind after a death.  A wife who loses her husband is called a widow.  A husband who loses his wife is called a widower.  A child who loses his parents is called an orphan.  But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child.  We all experience loss during our lifetime, no one is spared.  The loss you can reasonably anticipate, like the death of an aged parent, though heart-breaking, is at least within the realm of what most of us would consider to be the natural order of life.  A parents’ death severs a life-long connection to the person who first gave you unconditional love, the person who created a refuge where innocence could unfold into wisdom, the person who gave you legs to stand on and wings to fly.  I thought my heart would break when my parents passed.  But parents die before their children. You always knew it would be so.

It is said that when a parent dies you lose your past, but when a child dies, you lose your future.  I think this is especially true when a baby or young child passes. With the death of a young adult, the grieving is more for the future they have lost, a future being fully realized as you watch nearby, sometimes in amazement, sometimes in amusement. The absence of Mason’s physical presence in our lives is palpable. But on occasion I am fortunate enough to sense him, nearby, only a breath away.  In trying to understand why life that is so lovingly given to each of us, is at times so cruelly taken away, I asked questions that cannot be answered, not in this lifetime. When I stopped asking and started listening, I began to see. It’s not about finding  answers, it’s about having faith, faith in the Divine.  Faith comes first, then understanding and hope follow.  Even so, a year later, we still struggle to accept that when the phone rings, Mason won’t be on the other end, or when a car pulls up in front of the house, Mason won’t be getting out. Mason won’t be sharing his wit, his wisdom, his enthusiasm, his energy or his light. Or will he?  My resolve is to take a leap of faith, believing without benefit of proof and learning to see with my soul and listen with my heart.  So, I talk to Mason and he hears, I smile at Mason and he sees, I believe in Mason and he knows. He’s always been gifted.

If you are reading this and have lost a child, the first thing you should know is how truly sorry I am for you.  The second thing you should know is that you are not alone.  And the third thing you already know is that the first two things are probably of little comfort right now. I know, because I too have lost a child.  It is my hope that something I’ve learned along the way can be of help, however small. The process of grieving is a long one, but I can offer you hope of healing one day. If you have been spared this loss and find yourself on this site because of a personal relationship with Mason, you may want to skip ahead to the next entry which begins at the end of his life, moves on to remember an ever-evolving, truly unique soul and eventually ends with the beginning of hope.

There are no shortcuts on the path to healing.  I still walk that path, maybe slightly ahead of you or maybe slightly behind you.  Even so, I can’t say that I know how you feel, because every experience is as unique as the life that was lost and the family left behind to mourn.  Let your family, friends and faith accompany you on this journey, understanding that grief has to be experienced.  It is not optional.  We must be willing to walk through our grief, knowing one day we will walk beyond it. Our loss will accompany us the rest of our days, but at some point during the process of grieving, our perspective will evolve bringing with it the ability to integrate the memories of our child’s life less structured around grief and more structured around love.

We share something, you and I.  We belong to an exclusive club we never asked to join. To qualify for membership, you have to have suffered the unimaginable loss of a child.   At the beginning, surviving the rite of initiation into this club feels improbable, if not impossible.  And indeed your own survival may not be something that concerns you one way or the other.  You know only that your child is gone, you’ve lost your baby, no matter the age.  But time passes, one hour at a time, one day at a time, till one day the veil of grief parts ever so slightly and reveals just a hint of desire to more fully inhabit the life you now own. This is a good time to put your thoughts and emotions into form.  You may want to write the story of your child’s life or death.  You may prefer to paint a picture, meditate, join a support group, compose a song, plant a garden, volunteer, become an advocate, run a marathon.  It’s the process that’s important, not the medium. Whatever you choose should speak to your soul and give voice to your pain. Talk, cry, scream if so moved. Hold on and let time pass. Grief is not unlike a teacher you may have had who was especially hard on you, one who wouldn’t let up until you learned what it was you needed to know. You will learn from grief and eventually you may even be wiser, but the lessons learned and the wisdom gained are hard won and costly beyond words.

As a grieving parent, you may have the desire, even the compulsion, to hold all the memories of your child inside you, lest you forget.  So many of these moments are swirling around in your mind and filling your heart that you may feel anxious that a detail of your child’s life, or even of their death, may be lost.  So write the memories down.  For the time being, put them in a safe place outside of your heart and mind.

If fortunate (and I realize thinking yourself fortunate is relative), you will have someone who shares your pain and feels your loss;  your spouse, children, siblings or parents.  Let them be your strength.  Eventually, you will regain the desire and the ability to feel the love that still exists in your life, including the love you will always have for the child you have lost, alongside the love of the family and friends who stand next to you.  If you’re a relative or friend of someone who has suffered the loss of a child, the greatest service you can do is to listen.  Don’t judge, don’t edit and don’t try to fix things. You can’t. You can however, let them know they are being heard.

Writing has been my companion during the long days and nights since my son’s death.  At times, it has been my lifeline.  Writing allowed me to move some of the memories that I couldn’t bear to forget to a safe place, nearby.  I hope you can find a safe place to put your memories. When we are stronger, more of them will find a permanent home in our hearts.  But till then, we’ll keep the memories where we can always find them.

I will tell you my story because the telling is as important as the remembering.  If you’d like to leave a comment, there’s a button following each entry.  And if you’d like to share your story of loss and healing, regardless of where you are on the path, please visit the Share Your Story page.  I’m certain we will feel a kinship.

But first, you should know how my son died.

My son, Mason, acquired what’s known as gram negative sepsis from having common dental work done: the simple reattachment of a crown that had become loose.  However, when the dentist decided to do a full mouth debridement (a major teeth cleaning) during the same visit, bacteria that had been present under his crown was forcefully introduced into his bloodstream.  This caused Lemierre’s Syndrome and a domino effect of devastating, life threatening conditions including liver and kidney failure, fusobacterium endocarditis, ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) and stroke.  Mason spent three weeks in one of the best hospitals in the country, intubated, sedated, paralyzed and fighting for his life.  We lost Mason on December 7th, 2009, less than three weeks before his 35th birthday.  My son was a healthy, vibrant young man with his whole life ahead of him.  Or so it had seemed.  We held Mason’s Memorial Service at St. Philip Presbyterian Church on December 12th, 2009.  The Service was performed by Mason’s uncle, William Poe.  It was a fitting farewell to a remarkable man.

What follows are the letters I wrote to Mason in the months following his death.  Though personal and specific to our loss, it is my hope you will feel a sense of recognition, acceptance and validation for what you are going through now, or in days past or in days yet to come.  Some experiences are universal, even when the details are not. Unlike a typical blog, my entries begin at the beginning and move forward in time as does the grief and healing.  Disregard the ‘Posted on’ dates.  They only serve to put the entries in chronological order.

After each entry I have included the words of other more wise and articulate people who have walked with their own grief. These words have inspired, comforted and encouraged me. I hope they bring some peace to you now and some perspective to you in the future.   (Click on photos to enlarge)

“…I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the brotherhood of loss…” – Edward Hirsch

You left us in a heartbeat, and what was unthinkable has become unbearable.  I find myself in waters unknown to me, so deep and dark and threatening.  As I fight to stay above the surface, I am suddenly and completely overcome by a wave of grief of unspeakable size.  It pulls me under as if to drown me, and I go willingly.  I know it is stronger.  And then, when I have no more air in my lungs, it releases me and I float up to the surface once again, gasping, choking, alive.  I should feel thankful, but when I look around for you and you’re nowhere to be found, I only feel empty.  My heart is broken.

It has been 1 week.  It has been a lifetime.

“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” – Charles Beard

We never said a proper good-bye.  This time, this last time, was filtered through layers of sedation and shock in a room that was unbearably bright, strangers looking on in witness. This final farewell held nothing as familiar as a kiss, a hug, a smile and a wave good-bye as you took your leave.  This good-bye was something we were not prepared for.

We never knew how aware you were during those last three weeks.  We hoped somehow you could hear us talking to you, encouraging you, singing, praying.  We hoped you didn’t feel pain or discomfort or fear, especially fear.  Your eyes were closed, maybe that was a blessing, you couldn’t see the fear in ours.  When weeks earlier you had to be intubated, sedated and paralyzed, we failed to recognize the permanence of the procedures and the moment had come and gone unknown to us for the loss it ultimately was.  We were never again to share communication with you, eye to eye.  You were never again to see the love so present in our eyes.  We always expected you to heal. We always expected another chance to look into your eyes.

All I wanted was time;  time for you to live and love and laugh and cry and breathe and grow old.  All I wanted was to see you smile again. I didn’t want much.  I write about my pain, my loss, my grief, when it is you who lost your life.  My son, what you lose, I lose. What hurts you, hurts me.  We cannot be separated.  There was a time when you couldn’t tell where you stopped and I began.

You are loved.  You will always be loved.  Smile and feel the warmth of that love on your face, and I will smile back at you.

When facing the unknown, hope is as reasonable as despair.

Next week is Christmas and then your 35th birthday, or what now is the 35th anniversary of your birth.  And what  birth it was.   All 10 lbs. 1 oz. , 23 1/2″. You were some baby! Someone mentioned on your obituary guestbook that she remembered you as the most beautiful baby she had ever seen.  Who am I to argue?  Now it seems almost everyone remembers you for your smile.  You smiled with your whole face, and you smiled a lot.  I will miss that the most, seeing you smile.

We’ve been dismantling your home, your life, bit by bit.  What a few short weeks ago belonged to you, was used by you, enjoyed by you, we now distribute among the family for safe keeping.  Maybe someday it will be used by us and enjoyed by us.  But for now, we’ll just keep what was precious to you near to us.

The world knew you as brilliant and capable, driven to succeed, the go-to guy for anything involving technology.  You charmed many and were loved by many more.  And yet I always felt you were so vulnerable, so capable of being hurt.  From the beginning you touched a place in my soul that could make me cry and not know why.

I was with you when you entered this world and with you when you left.  And both times I sensed your strength.  Now your ashes sit on my desk.  I know it is not you, only the physical remains of what was your body.  I know your magnificent soul, your essence and your energy still exist.  Someday I’d like to feel that energy again and catch a glimpse of your soul.  I would consider that the greatest gift possible.

At the bottom of the well, one can look up and see the sky.

I begin to write my memories down, to keep them safe.

It is my most sincere pleasure to be your mother.  I think we go together like beer and chips.  See, another mother may have said peanut butter and jelly, but not yours.  You were special from the beginning.  You were born only when you were ready, not a minute earlier.  And don’t ask me what you were doing the whole time, but apparently it involved working on an alternative language, because when you started talking, the words you used were harder to pronounce than the words you were replacing and they somehow made even better sense.  You were happy, goofy, bright and beautiful.  It would seem that you grew into the man who was father to the child, still doing things in your own way and only when ready, not a minute earlier, still happy, goofy, bright and beautiful.  How I miss you.  You were always so full of energy and life that you found it hard to sit still. Pacing was more suited to you.  It may have made some people nervous, but not me.  I knew that shortly you’d come out with a pronouncement that would most likely stir the pot that is our family, get us talking, possibly arguing, definitely thinking.  We all have strong opinions and they were honed around the dinner table and the fireplace.  I think you kids have always known you could say anything, think anything, be anything, and as long as you were happy you had our blessings.  We now have a gap, a hole that exists in our family both physically and spiritually.

We will always be one short at the dinner table.                                                                           We will always feel the absence of your presence.                                                                       We will never be the same.

“Watch your way then, as a cautious traveler;  and don’t be gazing at that mountain or river in the distance, and saying ‘How shall I ever get over them?’ but keep to the present little inch that is before you, and accomplish that in the little moment that belongs to it.  The mountain and the river can only be passed in the same way;  and, when you come to them, you will come to the light and strength that belong to them. ” – M.A. Kelty

You are everywhere.  I rarely go more than a minute or two without something reminding me of you.

Food:  you were such a gourmand.  You loved anything involving cheese or bacon, preferably both, routinely had a dozen different bags of chips (all opened), stocked your fridge with beer from around the world, had been known to indulge in a Guero’s margarita or two, favored New York style pizza, macaroni salad and big sandwiches, and had a compelling desire to experiment with ordinary foods to create the extraordinary.

Traveling:  new experiences called to you, and when you could answer, you did so with abandon…Big Sur, New York, Carmel, New Orleans, Asheville, Napa, Seattle, Quebec, San Francisco, D.C., San Juan Islands, Orlando, La Jolla, Sundance, Long Beach, Williamsburg, Orcas, Montreal, Laguna, Park City…and so much more was yet to come.  You brought back rocks from your travels as Dad and I do.  We have your rocks with ours in the rock garden you gave me for Mother’s Day a few years ago.

Music:  live music at Austin City Limits or South x Southwest was greatly anticipated and rarely missed, and living in Austin you spent part of most weekends hearing live music somewhere.  You always wanted to play the guitar and learned how to at the very advanced age of twenty-something.  You never did give that recital you promised.

Creating:  working with wood, glass, metal, stone, film, or pen and paper.  Designing and building furniture and works of art and, when using your favorite medium, making short films, some realized and some only just conceived.  But I think your greatest talent was in writing.  Your mind could take you anywhere, and did.

Anything Tech:  so many times I would pick up the phone and run something by you.  You always knew the answer to any question asked, but if ever you didn’t, you gave your answer with such authority that you were never doubted.  You got that talent from Granddad; he was the master.

Basketball, cars,  politics, books, gum, biking, gnomes, architecture, frogs, hiking, fantasy football, furniture, pubs, tools, taking risks, working hard, dressing sharp, enjoying life…you got so much out of your 34 years, 11 months and 11 days.

“What is essential does not die but clarifies.” – Thornton Wilder

Dad and I got the call from the hospital at 3:43 am on Monday, December 7th.  It was not the first time we had received a call from the hospital in the middle of the night or in the early morning hours, but it was the last time.  You were dying, though we did not know it at the time.  You had fought so hard for so long and now the end of your life had arrived. It was inconceivable.

The night previous we had actually gone back to the hotel with hope in our hearts for the first time in a while.  You had had several good days, and by that I mean nothing major had gone wrong and that was good.  We had both thought, but never said aloud, that maybe you had turned the corner.

They were still working on you when we arrived.  You did not have a heartbeat.  They called your death at 4:15.  Everyone had done everything they could and it was time to let you go.  You had been so strong.  You had survived for three weeks with each day bringing another setback, any one of which was capable of causing your death.  But you held on, you wanted to survive, you had the will, if that alone had been enough.

They say people choose when they die, within limits.  They may wait till someone is there with them or has finally gone home for the day.  They may try to avoid a day of significance, a holiday, birthday or wedding.  We’ve seen it in our family.  I think you chose to die when Dad was there, still in Houston, just hours before he was to return home for the coming week.  You knew we would need each other to survive the moment of your passing.

It was your final and most loving gift to us.  We thank you.  I hope you knew we were there with you, especially at the end.  I hope you know you will always be here with us.  I hope to see your smiling face when it is my turn to go.

“We cannot afford to forget any experience, not even the most painful.”              – Dag Hammarskjold

Christmas in a few days and then your birthday.  It is Rowan’s first Christmas and our first Christmas without you.  Chopra says that life is like a stream with happiness and sadness on either side and that you will touch both sides during your lifetime.  The goal is to not become overly attached to either side.  If only that was possible.  How can I not be filled with happiness to see my grandchild on his first Christmas?  And how can I not be over-filled with sadness to be celebrating that Christmas with one of my own children gone? And how can both be happening at the same time?

I find my mind and heart demanding that I be present in both happiness and sadness now and know I must somehow build a bridge across this stream that will allow me easy access to both sides so I can walk between them as gracefully and gratefully as possible.  I cannot ignore that you are gone, and it is my greatest sadness, and I will not ignore Rowan’s first Christmas, and it is one of my greatest joys.

I know there will come a time when it’s easier to concentrate on what I have in my life than what I have lost, and even now on a good day, I know I am blessed.  But if I could have just one more hour with you, one more conversation, one more chance to look into your face, one more opportunity to tell you how much I love you, one more time to gather my children around the table, all my children.

While you were in the hospital, I held on to a vision of our family, all of us, gathered around the table, celebrating a holiday;  Thanksgiving, Christmas, your birthday, New Year’s, whatever holiday was next in line, however long it took.  And I knew I would look into each of your faces and feel so much love and gratitude that we were all there, together. I will do that this Christmas, look into the faces of those gathered around the table and then close my eyes and look into your face.  I will feel such love and gratitude, for those present and for those in presence.

“There is no way out, only a way forward.” – Michael Hollings

I know you are gone.  I watched as they pumped your chest.  And I watched as they stopped, in defeat, probably long after they should have.  I know you are gone, and yet I feel the need to call you home as if you’re just down the block, playing with friends and you’ve lost track of time.  It’s dark now, time for dinner.  I call to you as only a mother calls to her child.  You cannot answer.

“Love is the heartbeat of all life.” – Paramanhansa Yogananda

Today is your birthday.  You would have been 35 today.  You should have been 35 today.  I lie in bed in the mornings when it’s still too early to get up, and I think of you, peacefully. In my mind I talk to you, tell you how much I love you, how much I miss you, how sorry I am for you, for all of us, that your life is over.  I do that at night, too. Somehow in the dark you don’t feel so far away.  But come the light of day, it’s a different story.  Reality slaps me across the face when I least expect it, and the grief and loss shake me to my core, again and again.

I wonder if everyone feels that they grieve alone, because we all grieve so differently.  I know I feel alone.  Everyone else goes about their day, business as usual, or so it seems. My days consist of trying to get some work done and not being all that productive.  I write letters to you, which, if I’m honest, is probably more about writing letters to myself.  And I cry, alone.  I think we all cry alone.

I’m going to miss the man you would have become as much as I miss the man you had already become.  I think you would have aged well – mellowed, probably a little on the eccentric side.  Still a seeker, feeding your soul on input whenever and wherever you happened to find it – work, play, family, friends, music, art, travel, food…life.

Watching you grow old would have been one of my greatest pleasures.

Happy Birthday, my 34 year old son.  I love you.

“My grief and pain are mine.  I have earned them.  They are part of me.  Only in feeling them do I open myself to the lessons they can teach.” – Anne Wilson Schaff

When you were first admitted to the hospital, we talked most of the night away.  There were so many tests being done: middle of the night ultrasounds and CT’s and blood work hourly, so no sleep for the weary.  You were feeling restless, and I hoped that a guided meditation might help settle you, so we began.  Together, we took a trip in our minds.  I talked you through it, guiding you to a place in nature where you felt safe and happy.  I asked you to look around and take it all in, to think about what the sky looked like and what you could see off in the distance.  In my mind, you were probably in Big Sur, looking at the Pacific.  This went on for 10 minutes or so.  When it was over I asked you if you had enjoyed the trip.  You answered without hesitation that you had. You said “I’ve always loved New York.”

We’re only just beginning to learn how to live our lives without you.  It will no doubt be a life-long lesson.  So far the only thing that I’m sure of is that life is fleeting, ephemeral. We need to make the most out of the time given us, live our lives as I think you did, full out and in the present moment.  That’s my goal, but I have such a long way to go.

I welcome the day when I can look at pictures of you and not feel gutted, or when I can share stories about you and at some point, inevitably, smile and say, “That’s just so typically Mason.”   And what’s funny about that is, there is nothing typical about you.   You are a laundry list of equal and opposite characteristics that somehow co-exist peacefully and manifest as your unique being.  You are impossible to quantify.  You are Mason.

It has been 3 weeks.

“What is there to do when people die–people so dear and rare–but bring them back by remembering.” – May Sarton

I look back at dates on the calendar and think back to events over the last year, and my mind goes inevitably to you.  When I see pictures of Rowan’s birth, I think that on that day you were alive.  On that day we had no idea you would die before your next birthday.  I remember talking to you after your dentist’s appointment, and I now know your death had already been set into motion.  In remembering the trip back from Derick’s wedding, I now know it would be a week, just one short week, before you left your home for the last time and entered the hospital.  Calendars, ledgers, bills, trips, birthdays and holidays all serve to define my life between before and after.

Before, we had you in our lives, physically.  We could touch you, smile at you, sit across the table from you, have a drink with you, talk with you, envision your future.  Now we have you in spirit.  Maybe someday that will be enough, but not now, not today.  This, knowing I will never see you again in this life, is a sadness beyond words, but the even greater sadness is in knowing what you lost.

I grieve for the life you lost, for the years denied you.
I grieve for the family you would have created.
I grieve for the people you love and for those who love you.

Your brother was just here telling me about the box he made for your ashes.  He says it’s the finest thing he’s ever made, of that I have no doubt.  It began life as a carving of a tree that he started working on for you after you became sick.  Now it is part of your box, a box he made from the same wood as that which holds your grandparents’ ashes.  Talking to him today made me so incredibly sad, for a brother who lost his brother, a man he so clearly loves and respects, a love and respect returned by you.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to see beyond my own sadness.  We are all diminished.  We all grieve.

It has been 4 weeks and 1 day.

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” – Thornton Wilder

We run pictures of you on the digital photo frame in the kitchen each day.  At first it was hard to look at images of you, seeing you so vibrant, so alive.  It’s still hard, but at times, it’s also a comfort.  You were a happy guy, it’s written all over your face.  That’s my comfort.  Without exception you look healthy, happy, proud, handsome, comfortable in your own skin and in some pictures you look like the embodiment of bliss.  There’s a picture of you walking down the hill towards the cliff where you and Taylor would soon say your wedding vows and it looks like you’re floating.

There’s one of you standing at the stove at your house in Austin, cornbread and cabbage with bacon in the background and there you stand, obviously explaining the reasoning behind the traditional New Year’s Day meal beginning with “You see…”

A favorite of mine is a picture of you holding Rowan, a few weeks old at most, his head cradled in your hand, and you, so gently at peace with your nephew.

There are pictures of:

Mason the traveler, chef, friend
Mason the son, gardener, music-lover
Mason the brother, boyfriend, husband, uncle, grandson
and a very contemplative
Mason the thinker, sitting on a boulder, looking at the Pacific.

In every picture, you look happy – happy to be wherever you are.  Maybe you knew a thing or two about living in the moment.

As I learn my life anew, may I be empowered by loving memories.

You know how people say time flies when you get old?  I would have agreed with that before, but now the days seem to pass slowly. Has it only been 37 days?  I would swear hundreds of days had passed.  Or maybe just one, hard to say.

To live in the moment, that’s the only way through this.  I won’t be held hostage to a future where you no longer exist and the past, well, it’s passed.  Some days are harder than others, and that also means some days are easier, but I know that I will never again feel the peace and ease I took for granted when our family was whole.  I no longer live in a secure world, I never really did.

When you were growing up I found plenty of things to worry about when it came to your health and well being;  falling off your bike, being eaten by a cougar down at the creek, bee stings, traffic, fevers, kidnappers and later on, driving home on dark country roads late at night.  But thankfully, you survived.  And thrived.  I’m not sure when I let go of the ever present worrying, probably after college when you and Taylor settled down.  I thought, now someone else had your back, would take care of you and watch out for you.  You had made it through those dangerous years of adolescence and young adulthood.  What a relief.

We never saw the train barreling down on you.  We could not have imagined that your life would be threatened and ended as it was.  We were witness to you being ripped away from us in what felt like an instant, taken away at a point in your life when things were really starting to fall into place.  You had never seemed happier or more at ease with your self, your circumstances and your life.

You couldn’t have lived long enough to learn what you needed to learn in this life…You were not yet fully realized…At least that’s what it feels like to me…And I know I don’t have all the facts…But the fact is, I miss you more than I ever thought possible…The fact is, you are my baby and you are gone…And the fact is, this really hurts.

This day, I just need to get through this day.

“Be reverent before the dawning day.  Do not think of what will be in a year, or in ten years.  Think of today.” – Romain Rolland

The life I used to have passed when you passed.  Never again will I feel that life is good without the need to qualify.  You no longer exist where I can touch you, see your face, listen to you speak, watch you breathe, and that is my one and only exception to the perception.  I had always felt my life was blessed, with no qualifying, no quantifying.  I expected it to be.  Life should be good.  When you died in the early morning hours of December 7th, the world as I knew it ended.  I now live in a new world where I better understand that life is good, but not for everyone and not all the time.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

I’ve spent weeks now trying to come to terms with why this happened to you.  My grief has been all-consuming and I have let it run its course.  Only recently have I begun to realize that it’s not for me to question why this happened to you without also being willing to look at all the suffering in the world and feel saddened and in need of answers. Poverty, disease, war, death, hunger and hoplessness exist and continue on a daily basis for so many people who have never had the opportunity to feel that life is good.

Right now I feel very small and very self-involved.  Yes, I grieve, and yes, I am sad.               But I’m also blessed, no qualifying, no quantifying. It’s time for me to look around instead of within.

“We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” – Marcel Proust

We have become citizens of a new world.  One night, during our sleep, we were evicted from the world that we knew and loved and had lived in all our lives.  We found ourselves in a land where nothing was familiar.  We recognized no landmarks and without compass or map, felt disoriented and confused.  We had no tools, no skills, no language and no desire to be there.  So we started walking in search of warmth, shelter and survival.  Along the way we were able to fashion a few tools from the scraps we had been allowed to bring from our past life and we managed to learn a thing or two, some from books and some the hard way.  We hope it’s enough to buy us some time.

So here we are in a world not of our choosing, where peace of mind, comfort and happiness are only memories from another life, and going home is not an option as our old world is gone.  So we walk on, certain that we’ll be walking for the rest of our lives. But we are grateful to be moving out of the deep, dark woods of profound, new grief and moving towards the more light-filled open meadows of the future where we hope to rebuild our lives and regain some peace, some comfort and some happiness.  It will never feel like the home we knew and loved, but it’s all we have now.  Turns out, you can’t go home again.

It has been 78 days and nights and we are surviving, if not yet thriving.

If we know in our hearts that your soul survives, we can do this.  We can live our lives in relative peace with the promise of reunion one day.  I know that’s what you want for us because it’s what I’d want for you.  I love you today as always.  xxxooo, Ma

“They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.  Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas;  they live in one another still.”              – William Penn

Mason visited me in a dream, Monday, early morning, July 26th.

In my dream, I was standing in my kitchen.  The cabinets and walls were painted a deep blue.  I didn’t like anything about it and wanted to tear it apart and start over.  I looked around and saw Mason standing nearby.  I was so happy to see him, I just hugged and hugged him and didn’t ever want to let go.  In the dream, I knew Mason had passed, so I was aware of the rare gift I was receiving to see him again.  Mason told me to think about what I really wanted to do with the kitchen before I began;  to get rid of what didn’t work, but to keep what did.  Then Mason was gone, and I couldn’t find him for a few minutes. When I found him, he was lying down.  I asked him what he was doing and he said, “Thinking. Something like this takes planning and thinking.”  We went back into the kitchen and started talking about options.  When I looked back at Mason, he was standing beside a suitcase.  He told me that he had to go back now, but he’d return to help me.

I woke up sobbing.  It was 2:44 am.  This dream was unlike any dream I’ve ever had as I knew Mason had passed, felt the incredible joy of seeing him again and the deep sorrow of saying good-bye again.  It was, and still is, very real to me.  It was a gift.

It has been 8 months and 1 day, a long time since last I wrote. Thoughts of Mason are never far away.  Maybe I better understand a few things, time will tell.  I walk on…

“When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found.” – an old Sufi aphorism

Early on, writing was as necessary to my survival as breathing.  As a parent, you have probably had occasion to witness projectile vomiting in your infant.  Writing was like that for me.  It had to come out.  I couldn’t stop it and it wouldn’t have been healthy to try.  Lately I have been able to concentrate on some other avenues of healing; I’ve spent more time with my family, some still in tears, but more often with a degree of ease and joy.  I’ve gathered pictures of Mason for a future album and have connected with some of his friends.  I’ve also done a great deal of reading, what’s better than the wisdom of the ages.  And recently we’ve had the blessing of welcoming a new grandbaby into our family. Mason now has a niece, Molly, sister of Rowan.  The circle of life continues.

“All I know from my own experience is that the more loss we feel the more grateful we should be for whatever it was we had to lose.  It means we had something worth grieving for.  The ones I’m sorry for are the ones that go through life not even knowing what grief is.” – Frank O’Connor

My world was whole.  I was fortunate, whether I always realized it or not.  Good days dominated.  In fact, I didn’t know what a bad day was, I thought I did, but I didn’t.  When Mason died, my world imploded.  As one world faded, another one took it’s place and in this newly emerging world, I was incapable or indifferent of remembering what had existed before. Now I live in two worlds, parallel worlds.  The notion of parallel worlds helps to explain this person I occasionally catch a glimpse of who has the ability to feel happiness again, if only for a moment.  It takes my breath away.  How can I be enjoying myself, laughing, smiling? Have I forgotten that my son is gone?  How can I be looking forward to taking a trip where Mason’s ashes will be scattered?  Pleasure survives even without my permission.

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, and Faith looks up…

It occurs to me that what Mason endured in his last weeks was not unlike a wildfire. It spread quickly and consumed everything in it’s path.  Day by day, hour by hour, another spark would grow into a blaze that threatened devastation.  Some embers stayed hidden, waiting for a change in the wind before they, too, erupted and had their turn. It was impossible to contain and raged on until there were no more trees standing.  Even though we had the best equipment and the most dedicated people on the front line, the fire was always one step ahead of us, just beyond our reach.  And like a wildfire, it was preventable.

Spirituality is that place where the utterly intimate and the vastly infinite meet. – Rick Fields

It wasn’t that long ago when I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and think it couldn’t have happened.  Mason couldn’t have died, it’s not possible, it’s all been a terrible mistake.  Please, tell me it’s not real.  But it was real and it did happen. It took time before his death was truly known to me in the way that all truths are known, without doubt, without question.  I knew the sun would come up in the morning, I knew the sun would go down in the evening, and I knew Mason had died.  More time had to pass before I began to understand that even so, all was not lost. Mason’s life had ended, but his soul, that unseen, at times undervalued, yet ultimately defining element in each of us, survives what our bodies and minds cannot.  It’s where our wisdom, our wealth and our true beauty reside.

Fear knocked at the door, Faith answered and lo, no one was there.

Whenever emotions threaten to overwhelm me, once the crying has finally subsided, I’m able to remember that I’m in good company. I pray for the mothers who have come before me who have lost a child and I cry for the mothers who are unaware that this kind of suffering awaits them, patiently. How blessed I was to never entertain the notion of this kind of loss. When my world once again expands beyond my self and I’m able to be a little more objective, I’ll remember that there are so many souls in pain much greater than mine. They are legion.  But tonight I cry.  For my son.  For Mason.

For certain is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead; Therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve. – Bhagavad Gita

Mason and Taylor were married on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean just south of Big Sur.  Steve and I stayed at Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn which sits on a canyon below a mountain that threatens to slide and take the inn with it.  It’s one of our favorite places in the world, primitive and evolved at the same time.  You heat your cabin with wood but sleep in the comfort of Italian linen sheets and down duvets. There are no locks on the doors, no televisions to entertain, no internet or cell phone reception, but there’s an abundance of serenity, redwoods, waterfalls and good wine.  Not for everyone, for sure, but each time we stay there, we’re gifted with a sense of peace, a sense of place. Our cabin is called Faraway, and it is.  One of the things we’re drawn to are the journals kept in each cabin for the guests to write in. They go backs years and years and contain love letters, drawings, poetry, dreams, worries, hopes and memories. We’ve left entries of our own. What follows is a portion of the entry I wrote the night of Mason and Taylor’s wedding.

Then:  8.26.06

Our son, Mason Dixon Jackson, joined hands, hearts and lives with Taylor Young at a glorious ceremony at Point 16, further down the coast near Lucia.  Warm, clear and starry, a fingernail moon, whales, uninvited and greatly appreciated, a union of two people much loved by many.  Soaring Starkey led a very touching ceremony and managed to both embrace the beauty of the location and at the same time render it invisible so that we saw only what was happening between these two people at this point in time…

And Now:  12.15.10

This time, our third time, we came for good-byes.  We lost our son, Mason Dixon Jackson one year ago on 12.7.09  The last time we were here was for his wedding.  My entry on that day was full of promise, love, hope and magic for our son and his bride.  The date was 8.26.06.  Not so long ago.  My husband and I have spent the last few days spreading our sons ashes, sometimes to the wind, sometimes to the rocks, and sometimes to the sea, but always with promise, love and hope for our son on this journey he takes alone. Faraway has brought us a different comfort than before.  It’s not been for our tired bodies, though they are, it’s not been for our tired minds.  This time, this last time, it was for our souls, our very weary souls.  Good-byes are hard.

A year later: 12.12.11

We just returned from a pilgrimage to Big Sur. Our first few nights were spent in the welcoming arms of Faraway. I picked up the journal that I had written in the year before and the entry after mine was a response, written by a stranger, possibly never to have been shared with the people it was intended for.  It read;

“I hope you and your husband found some solace and a little peace as you sadly bid good-bye to your beloved Mason.  Sending prayers for your sad loss and that somehow happy memories permeate through tiny cracks of your sorrow.  Peace, love and respect.”

This soul, unknown to us, reached out and dared to feel some of our loss. This soul cared. Peace, love and respect to you, as well, my friend.  Bless you.

Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.  – 1 Corinthians 13:7-8

There’s another aspect of losing a child that has only recently become known to me.  I was previously aware that marriages are at risk in the aftermath of such a tragedy.  It is said that grief tears us apart with the reckless abandon of a tornado. Sometimes there’s enough remaining to rebuild and sometimes the only thing you can do is to move on and start over.  My husband and I count ourselves fortunate to have survived the storm and to have come through it even stronger.  We’ve grieved together.  We’ve grown together.  The shared love and loss of our son binds us in unspoken unity.  But I was unaware that the relationships I had with my surviving children were subject to lesser, yet more destructive winds.

After Mason’s death, Steve and I became acutely aware of how precious time is and how short life can be.  Our priorities changed, sometimes in small and subtle ways and sometimes profoundly.  Knowing that both time and energy are finite resources, we were determined to spend ours with intention.  It was time to rethink, to reboot, to go inside.  Many months later, when our lives began to come back into focus, it was clear what still resonated in our hearts and what didn’t.  We were different people, indeed different parents with different children.  We had all been rewired.  But parents aren’t supposed to change, even after the life-altering loss of a child.  We assumed our kids, being adults with families of their own, would understand better than anyone that we had suffered the worst loss imaginable for a parent and that for the time being, our focus was on surviving the loss and adjusting to the new, unwelcomed paradigm.  In time, maybe they’ll be able to understand that it was not our intention to change.  But it was inevitable and should not have been judged from a distance but embraced from the perspective of a lifetime of being loved and cared for.

Our kids became very close after Mason’s death, bonded to each other in a way they had never been before. They were each other’s support system, sharing the loss of their brother as only siblings could.  Steve and I, likewise,  grieved together as only parents could.  Family and friends were unfailingly patient, loving and supportive, knowing we were doing our best to find our way. But our hearts had been broken and at least for now we had neither the desire nor the ability to participate in our lives as fully as before. Things that had previously been of interest became submerged in our grief. Mason was always in our thoughts and our tears flowed often and freely.  Steve and I mourned with intention knowing our grief had to be felt in order to be dealt with.  Our kids who had both been dealing with substantial issues prior to Mason’s death, found themselves at the beginning of the grieving process already overwhelmed, their emotional resources exhausted. Things that would have been considered extremely difficult under ordinary circumstances, became extraordinarily challenging. And we all had such a long way to go.

Not everyone is able to grieve in a heathy manner. It’s hard and exhausting work, full of unrelenting sadness, pain and tears.  It’s so much easier to be mad than it is to be sad. Grief counseling and therapy can help you process your grief in such a manner that no unnecessary hurt is felt and no additional harm is created. On the other hand, ignoring your grief can make you toxic and destructive to yourself and those who share your loss.

Losing Mason was the hardest thing any of us have ever been through and our kids cannot conceive of a loss greater than that of a sibling.  My fervent prayer is that they never have to learn otherwise.  In my experience, the love you have for your siblings, though deep and abiding, does not compare to the love you have for your children.  The love is different, the loss is different. And that is something only parents who have spent a lifetime loving and nurturing their children would understand.  Grief is so entwined with love, that a child watching a parent grieve over a sibling could easily feel slighted by the depth of feelings involved in that process.  You can almost hear them say,  I’m still here, isn’t that enough?

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”- Robert Frost

November-December 1974

Mason took his time coming into this world. We expected his arrival on or about the 8th of November. Our child would be a Scorpio. As often happens with due dates, the 8th came and went quietly. This baby was in no hurry to be born, it was not yet his time. A few weeks later on the 28th of November, I celebrated my 25th birthday which happened to fall on Thanksgiving day that year. My child would be a Sagittarius, like me. Cool! Having no signs of impending birth and past due by three weeks, I entered the hospital to be induced, only to be sent home many hours later with empty arms and an ever-growing belly.  This baby wasn’t budging and November turned into December.  We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as we celebrated Christmas, I’m sure we did a bit of both, but as it turned out we didn’t have much longer to wait. His time had come at last. Our child would be a Capricorn. We welcomed Mason into our hearts on December 26th, all 10 lbs. 1 oz, 23 1/2″ of him. Mason was born when his soul was ready and not a moment sooner.

November-December 2009

Mason left this world much too soon. He was infected with fusobacterium on the 4th of November, fell sick on the 11th, admitted to the hospital on the 16th and intubated on the 18th. During the remainder of November, Mason suffered one assault after another, his survival threatened daily. We postponed Thanksgiving, choosing to wait until Mason was well and we could celebrate together, as a family. Mason had surgery on my 60th birthday and November turned into December. On the morning of December 3rd it began to snow. That afternoon as I watched the snow fall lightly from his hospital room window, the fire alarms went off and Mason quickly began to slip away. But he didn’t leave, not that day. It was not yet his time, only a glimpse into the very near future. We said good-bye to Mason in the early morning hours of December 7th, our minds numb, our hearts broken. His time had come. That Christmas we cried. He never saw his 35th birthday. Mason passed when his soul was ready and not a moment later.

“God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open. ” –       Hazrat Inayat Khan

What happens after we die? Does our soul survive? Knowing there was not one definitive answer, I was content to wait and see, comfortable in my belief that all will be well. I was complacent. My belief system, acquired in childhood, had long ago been packed away, unheeded, and unquestioned. Then Mason died and I had questions, lots of them, but I had little foundation for understanding and acceptance. To me, Mason had been cheated, his life thoughtlessly ended by carelessness and indifference. His death was senseless.

There are many spiritual paths, be they religious or philosophical, and some of us take a while finding ours. One has to be motivated to leave the warm, cozy nest of  complacency, to face their fears and seek their truths. It’s been my experience that pain, grief, and injustice are great motivators. I’ve always felt that there had to be something more to our existence than this lifetime. My path led me to reincarnation, the belief that our souls are transcendent. These are my truths; the life we are experiencing at present is only one of many we have lived; we go through the cycle of birth and death time and again to further our soul’s development; each soul has lessons to learn and lessons to teach and sometimes these lessons are disguised as hardships, even tragedies; the soul is eternal. These truths began to enlighten and empower me, banishing the notion of senselessness. It would seem our greatest lessons are learned when we are brought to our knees. It’s stumbling through the darkness that encourages us to seek the light.

Somewhere along the way, many of us forget that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and not the other way around. Perhaps Mason’s untimely death was part of his life’s plan, a piece of the grand design that remains unknown and unseen while we are incarnate. I can’t say I know why Mason died so young but I can say, we have been forever changed by his life and his death. The lessons learned and the lessons taught are many. And I’m confident that a grand design exists, even if I can’t see it. This I believe; when once again in a state of pure consciousness, I will understand, and it will make perfect sense.

Mason was in the hospital for 3 weeks. His condition was critical from day one and each subsequent day brought another life-threatening crisis to bear; liver failure, kidney failure, gram negative sepsis, endocarditis, internal bleeding, acute respiratory distress syndrome, three pneumothoraces, hypoxia, and stroke. Each one of these on its own was serious and potentially fatal, but together, they proved insurmountable. It’s hard to watch your previously strong and healthy child endure such devastation. Days were long. Nights were even longer. Family surrounded us with their love and prayers, but mostly, we all felt helpless. We could only be witness to this unthinkable downward spiral. But as the days and nights unfolded, we were blessed to receive comfort, guidance and protection as love and light found its way into our presence. It came when we least expected it, brought by people who were unknown to us at the time. These people are now indelibly etched on our souls. They offered gifts from their hearts as only those who understand life and death intimately can. As time has passed, separating me a little from the events, I’m able to see the true beauty of their gifts.

The first time I was aware of being in the presence of grace was the day that I found out Mason had had a stroke. His pulmonary specialist just casually asked “Has anyone told you that your son has had a stroke?” I was caught off guard-it was not something we had ever considered having to deal with. I went out into the hall to have a melt down, not wanting Mason to know how distraught I was. He had been in a medically induced coma almost since his arrival, but not knowing what he could hear or feel, I didn’t want to break down in front of him.  I just started sobbing. This woman came up to me and without saying a word, put her arms around me and held me while I cried. When I could finally speak she said “Now, tell me what’s happened.” We were strangers to each other, but she recognized a soul in despair and didn’t hesitate to step up and offer herself. I needed to be held at that moment more than anything and there she was. We became friends, giving each other support and encouragement, talking as if we had known each other for years. She found out I was staying in a hotel down the street from the Med Center and without hesitation invited me to stay at her house. This loving, open-hearted woman invited a complete stranger into her home without a second thought. I declined her generous offer but we continued to run into each other almost daily. She was caring for her husband who had had a major cardiovascular event and whose survival was in question. But he did survive and was eventually moved to another section of the hospital. One day, a week or so later, this friend came back to our floor to check on Mason, but we were gone. She was deeply saddened to learn of Mason’s passing. It was just a few months later when we learned of her passing. The heart that she gave so generously to family, friend and stranger alike had stopped. Her name was Nancy and I will never forget her.

The second time someone reached out to me was with a message. Mason had been in the hospital for 11 days at this point. He had a cadre of doctors taking care of him and I knew them all by sight, name and speciality. Around lunch time I headed over to the cafeteria through a labyrinth of halls and tunnels, joining a river of people-doctors, nurses, family and friends of patients, all of us in search of sustenance. The hallway narrowed at one point, slowing down the process. A large group of doctors approached from the opposite direction. One man veered away from the group, crossing over to the side where I walked. He stopped directly in front of me, looked intently into my eyes and asked how my son was doing.  It took more than a few minutes to fill him in on Mason’s condition, all the while people were having to walk around us to continue on their way. When I had finished telling him, he said in a slow, direct voice;  “You need to call him home. Do you know what I’m saying? You need to call him home.” Without another word, he turned and continued on his way. I had never seen this man before, indeed I never saw him again. He was quite clearly giving me a message and I received it eagerly, if inaccurately. To me, home for Mason was with his family and that was exactly where we wanted him to be. But in retrospect, I believe this man was talking about his true home-home with God. I may never know who this man was, but I do know he was there to deliver a message. It was a message I was not ready to hear.

The third event was a moment of divine intervention which came 2 days later. It was my 60th birthday and my son had to have surgery. He had suffered a stroke as a side affect of the endocarditis.  A piece of ‘vegetation’ on his heart valve had broken free and traveled to his brain. In order to prevent any further strokes, they needed to install a mesh implant into a major artery to catch any potential clots. As he was being readied for surgery, the double doors into the CVICU opened to reveal what I could only describe at the time as an angel in a floor length pink surgical gown. I’m not someone who thinks about angels, sees angels, talks to angles and yet she was known to me in an instant as an angel. I didn’t doubt it, not then and not since. She and her crew were there to take Mason up to surgery. But instead of just doing her job she came over to me to ask how Mason was doing. I filled her in and by the time I was through she called off the surgery until the surgeon could come down and assess Mason’s condition for himself. Mason was in a fragile state where the least movement caused his oxygen levels to plummet. After personally witnessing Mason’s precarious hold on life, the surgeon assembled a large team of specialists and many other support personnel to participate in his transfer and surgery thereby increasing his chance of survival. When he was finally taken into surgery, there were no fewer than 20 people accompanying him. They remained by his side during the surgery and indeed he did survive-that day. We were incredibly grateful, especially for the angel in a pink surgical gown who cared enough to ask this mother how her son was doing.

Three events, none of them particularly earth shattering in nature, but outside of what I would consider typical, ordinary or predictable. Who were these people?

Well, Nancy was an exceptionally kind and loving soul who even in her own pain and distress reached out to help another soul in need.

The man who delivered the message? For the life of me I don’t know who he was. A messenger, an angel, a doctor? Yes, probably all three.

The nurse in pink scrubs was quite obviously of flesh and blood, walking this earth doing her job. But she was more. Her presence kept Mason alive that day. My son would not die on my 60th birthday.

May God bless these souls.

Gitanjali, Song Offering 95,  by Rabindranath Tagore

“I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery like a bud in the forest at midnight.  When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that the inscrutable without name and form had taken me into its arms in the form of my own mother.  Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as ever known.  And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.  The child cries out when from the right breast the mother takes it away, in the very next moment to find in the left one its consolation.”

“Death Is Nothing At All”,  by Canon Henry Scott-Holland

“Death is nothing at all.  I have only slipped away into the next room.  I am I and you are you.  Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.  Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way you always used.  Put no difference into your tone.  Wear no forced air of solemnity.  Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together.  Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.  Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.  Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.  Life means all that it ever meant.  It is the same as it ever was.  There is absolute unbroken continuity.  What is death but a negligible accident?  Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?  I am but waiting for you for an interval somewhere very near, just around the corner.  All is well.  Nothing is past;  nothing is lost.  One brief moment and all will be as it was before.  How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.”

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark. – Rabindranath Tagore

I’ll close now.  Thank you for walking along beside me for a while.  If you’d like to share your story, please see the Share Your Story page.  Let us know what you’ve found to be true, what has helped and what has hurt. We may not know each other, but we’re Family.

May you have the time you need to heal.  I wish you peace, love and light.                       Susan Sumerlin Jackson

Pictures of Mason Dixon Jackson, family and friends. (Click photos to enlarge) Memories…so many sweet, funny, profound memories.  Finite memories.

Memory nourishes the heart, and grief abates…Marcel Proust