Author Archives: Susan Jackson

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; … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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, … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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. … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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. … Continue reading →

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, … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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. … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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, … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →