How Are You Doing? 2 Months After Losing My Boy

It’s been 2 months (yesterday) since losing my boy. I have so many people sending me messages to check up on me and I am so blessed that people care enough to take time out of their day to make sure I’m still hanging in there. I will say the question “How are you” is very difficult to answer. I could just say “I’m doing ok”. But that would be a lie. I could tell the truth…and to a certain few, I have been honest and then I regret it later because my current honest is a little dark.

Here is an example of how I’m actually doing. Today I had to run to several stores to find an item my daughter needs for her FFA Convention trip. I don’t like to get out much right now because I never know how I will react to stress, traffic, being around people, being overwhelmed with memories of Nick everywhere I go, etc……for my daughter….I’ll do it. I cried all the way to Columbia, a town about 20 miles away because Nick is constantly on my mind. I miss him so much it overwhelms me. After several stores, I couldn’t find the item I was looking anywhere! I was getting more and more overwhelmed with each store I went in to. At one point, I walked out into the parking lot of one of the stores and could not find my car. I wandered around looking for it and eventually came to the conclusion that it had been stolen. Panic took over. I started crying. Finally, I pushed the “panic” button on my key fob in a last ditch effort to find it and heard it blaring 2 rows over. My brain is so overwhelmed with so many emotions, worries and triggers that it just gives up on me.

There are many days where I cannot seem to rip myself away from Nicks room. I lie on his bed, listen to his playlists, sleep, cry, smell his pillow, talk to him and sometimes I even scream as loud as I can. I don’t want to move or disturb anything yet. I want it to stay the way he left it, for the most part. His boots have been sitting in the exact same spot he left them 2 months ago. Perfectly placed.

As I mentioned above, my daughter is leaving tomorrow for a week. I’m an anxiety ridden mess. I’m so fearful something bad will happen to her. I am scared to be in my quiet home without her. I have so many fears now and it’s absolutely miserable. I try to be brave in the face of my daughter but I am so scared to let her go. She will be going to college this next May and we just took her senior pictures this past weekend. We took her to Oklahoma last week to visit the college she wants to go to. All of the things we were doing with Nick just months ago. We were just taking his senior pictures 6 months ago, visiting his college 6 months ago, filling out his FAFSA and scholarship applications. These triggers are devastating. I am grieving the loss of Nick while getting my daughter through her senior year and preparing her to attend college herself. Add the fact that Nick passed away the weekend after his first week of college….I now have a huge fear something will happen to my daughter when she leaves. Pushing myself to do normal, life things is hard and it is very exhausting. Life is moving on and my son is gone and I feel like I’m leaving him behind. Nick will always be 18, while my daughter, Nicks friends and everyone else gets older.

I’m not sure I should admit this, but I will because I am hoping to relate to someone who is currently or will unfortunately be hurting and grieving as I am in the future. Today, while driving down a gravel road, i accelerated to a ridiculous speed with absolutely no fear thinking “whatever happens, happens”. I didn’t do it for very long but I did it. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I’m not suicidal but at this point, I have loved ones here on Earth and I have my sweet boy in Heaven. I feel torn between the two. I realize this was wrong and will address this with my counselor but I felt I needed to be completely honest because this is where I’m at right now. The pain of living without Nick is so intense and I don’t know how I’m going to survive it.

Everywhere I go, I have memories with my son. Going to the mall is very painful for me and I avoid it when I can. Again, I’ve had to go twice now because my daughter needed me to but when I go, I have breakdowns. That’s where Nick and I spent a lot of time together. I see memories all over the place there. I have not been able to go to the sushi restaurant Nick and I frequently went to. He would always buy my meal there and we would always order new things and share with each other. We had awesome talks there.

I cry after the nightmares. I cry when he doesn’t visit me in my dreams. I cry when he DOES visit me in my dreams and then I wake up and he’s gone. I cry when I see my friends with their teen boys because I don’t have mine anymore. I cry when I listen to songs that remind me of him. I cry when I hear his voice or his sweet laugh on videos. I cry when a red jeep passes me by. I am constantly crying. And if I’m not crying, it’s because I have been crying so much that day that I’m cried out for the moment.

I don’t go out much, unless it’s with the people that are in my small circle of very close friends and family. I don’t want to be the “downer” but I also can’t hang very long without losing it. I am a very social person so this is confusing to me. I don’t do well isolating but I am not who I was before Nick passed either. I am in the middle of the worst time of my life and I don’t know how to balance that with my social life. Luckily, I have people who understand this. I do find myself spending a lot of time at Nick’s grave and I always appreciate finding flowers and items people left there. It shows me others are visiting and thinking of him. Sometimes when I sit there, it seems unral that I am actually sitting at MY son’s grave. Nick’s grave. The boy I grew in my body, gave life to, raised and loved for 18 years. It’s just not right.

I’ve been told this devastation gets lighter. I’m waiting for this to happen. But for right now, this is how I’m doing. This is my reality. I ask for patience and grace as I may not act like my previous happy, bubbly, positive self. I may forget I spoke to you last week as my brain is very foggy and overwhelmed. I may not reach out to you like I would have before if you are going through a hard time. Just know if I put a heart on your post, that is me saying I’m thinking about you and I’m praying for you. Thank you for checking in.