Our life, our loss, and honoring our sweet little man
I watch a lot of TV. If you can call TV watching a hobby, it’s my number one. I’ve recently watched two shows that address child loss, and I couldn’t have more different feelings about the two. We’re going to be talking about ER (circa 2005 specifically) and This is Us. If you’re not caught up on either show (I’m referring to This is Us more than ER. If you’re not caught up on something from 2005, that’s not my problem.), read no further. I warned you.
It’s almost the day after Thanksgiving, and I’m going to officially put Thanksgiving into the category of “things that were not as bad as I thought they were going to be”. No one asked me what I was thankful for, and no one got punched. When I was younger, that was actually a “tradition” someone started. I don’t remember who, but I do remember going around the table and everyone being expected to share. Let’s just be thankful that little tradition didn’t make its way into 2017 Thanksgiving.
If you’ve landed here because you’re looking for an encouraging, uplifting holiday blog post about how “there’s always something to be thankful for”, you are in the wrong place. Go ahead and close your browser window. This one is not for you. I’ll get it out of the way and say that, of course, there are some things I am thankful for, but that’s not what this is about. This is about how disrespectful it is for others to shove their thankful agendas down my throat.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 10 months processing the trauma of losing Brady. Weekly appointments with a therapist, grief support groups, grief hours, journaling, and, of course, blogging. Losing a child is a horrific, unnatural kind of loss. Even if I you haven’t experienced it yourself, I probably don’t have to tell you this. What I have started to realize is that I haven’t scratched the surface of processing some of the other traumas I’ve experienced. The fact that a significant date is looming, less than 2 months away, is making this all the more clear.
I remember Brady John every day (and pretty much all day). We all have ways to carve out time for the ones we love each day, whether those people are with us or not. I visit Brady’s grave most days. I look at photos of him (my phone’s lock screen and background are all Brady). I think about him. A lot. These things have become a part of my routine. Sometimes, it’s really nice to do something special in Brady’s memory, something out of the ordinary.
I’ve written my fair share of “What NOT to do” pieces on this blog. I’ve often wondered why it seems to be so hard to think before you speak, or to consider your audience. Pregnancy announcements are an uncomfortable subject to broach when you’re sharing the news with a loss mom. There are good odds that a loss mom will come away from the conversation thinking it was handled poorly. Remember, I wrote this gem about sucky pregnancy announcements.
I’ve been laid up and sick for the better part of two weeks, and haven’t done nearly as much writing as I’d like to. A couple of months ago, I shared a post about some of the writing I’d contributed to other blogs and I figured it’s a good time for me to share again.
October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, so it seems fitting that we’d get a very special memory of Brady this month. Brady John Bear (finally!) arrived! I placed an order with Molly Bears back in April, knowing that the wait would be 6-8 months. I found myself consistently checking their website, hoping I would see the status of our bear change from “ordered” to “in production”. That finally happened in September, and I couldn’t wait to see what our little bear would look like.
One recurring theme that I constantly come back to is time. There never seems to be enough of it, and that idea has never rang more true than when you’re talking about the loss of a child. We never know how much sand our hourglass holds until it runs out. Sometimes, after the hourglass runs out of sand, we can celebrate the time that we had with our loved ones. There’s no celebrating when a life as short as Brady John’s ends. We never imagined that Brady’s hourglass would have so little sand in it.
The first time I heard the term “secondary loss” was at a support group. I had no idea what it was, but quickly learned the term describes all the smaller losses we experience, beyond the actual death. It was hard for me to even think of secondary losses for a while, because it seemed awful to think of anything else beyond the horrible, insurmountable loss of our son. It was hard to think that other losses could even matter when compared to Brady’s death.