What Does One Year Look Like After Losing My Child?

Warning: Possible Trigger Topics

The dreaded August 28th is coming up in a few days. I’ve been going back and forth on what I wanted to write. We all know it was inevitable I was going to write something as writing is how I cope. I wanted to try and keep it positive. I also thought about writing a poem. I thought about keeping it spiritual so I can encourage others and be a witness to my faith, which at this point, is the only hope I carry. In the end, I decided to stand by the title of my blog and keep it real. If you don’t like the cold hard truth, I would encourage you to go ahead and back out of this blog and read something else that is more uplifting. I can’t help but to just be honest. I want to reveal what it’s REALLY like to grieve a child so those out there who are going through the same thing can kind of relate and feel like they aren’t going crazy. If you haven’t experienced the loss of a child, I don’t mind encouraging messages but if you try to give me advice or try to tell me to change or think a different way, I will more than likely ignore your advice. Sorry to be so harsh but you wouldn’t believe what well-intentioned people have said to me. I’m over it. Here goes nothing.

One year ago on August 28th, 2022, I came home from a camping trip, my youngest daughter with me, and found my son, Nick, dead on the bathroom floor, with a gunshot wound to his head. Worst day of my life, hands down. The scene runs through my head all the time like a movie on replay. I will never forget finding my sweet boy dead and I will also never forget screaming his name over and over hoping he could still hear me, so he would come back to me though it was obvious there was no life left in my precious son. The rest of the day, week, and months are all a blur.

About two months ago, the fog lifted and my grief now seems to be more intense. I’m physically sick. My PTSD gets triggered and I get hysterical. Going out in public causes anxiety and I shake and try to back out of plans as much as possible. I’m able to keep myself together and act halfway normal for work or for short periods of time but I get exhausted and emotional afterward, in the comfort of my home.

In addition to my son passing and carrying that grief with me like a backpack full of weight on a daily basis, I am carrying so many other things that are contributing to my anxiety and depression. My husband and I are separated. I won’t give details on that because I love him and would never want to speak ill of him. It’s complicated and when your marriage is already struggling and then you are hit with losing a child in a traumatic way, well, the odds of a marriage staying together are very low. Kudos to the couples who come together in tragedy and make it through. We are both still getting together for family gatherings, helping each other when we need it and we are still trying to support each other the best we can. There is no bad guy in this situation. It’s really nobody’s business but I know there have been rumors and confusion so I wanted to address it. He is the father of my children and we have been married for 20 years. Sometimes you just have to step away and put distance between yourselves to figure things out.

Just last week we took my daughter to her new college, got her moved in, and left her there. This would be hard on most parents. Becoming an empty nester is tough. But for me, since my son took his life a week after we dropped him off at college, let’s just say the day after I left my baby girl, I had a major PTSD crisis/breakdown and I have since been put on meds to get me through these next couple of weeks. This whole year has been hard to get through because in my head, Nick and Sommer are tightly intertwined. I have been doing everything for Sommer we had just done for Nick the year before. It kinda messes with your head especially if you are dealing with grief in addition to dealing with trauma. Sommer is loving college and we Facetime often so I can see her face and hear her voice. I’m so proud of her. I feel like she is going to soar and accomplish so much. Go Bearcats!

My support has dwindled significantly. Don’t get me wrong, I have a TON of amazing people who send me messages and texts telling me they love me and telling me they are grieving with me. It means the world to me. When your life has turned upside down and you don’t recognize it anymore, it’s very disorienting. I have a handful of friends that understand this and they show up in person to check on me often, they get me out of the house, they spend the night with me when I’m in crisis, they take off work for me when they know August 28th is going to be tough and they want to be ready in case I need them and they are literally going through life with me at this point. I have a few family members who do the same. There is nothing like walking into my sister’s house and I can immediately feel like I can breathe. She and her family have gotten me through the worst of times.

Here is the scary part and this is where people are going to want to jump in and give me harsh advice. But I’m only including this in here because IT’S NORMAL and this is mostly for you mama’s out there who have lost your babies and you know what I’m talking about. I’m currently in the fight of my life. Life is painful. When you are grieving a child, especially a child you were so close to, you feel like life keeps kicking you when you’re down and the pain of losing that child is so great, you honestly don’t know if you are going to survive it. You actually don’t want to survive it. I said it. The dreaded thing you’re not supposed to say out loud. I would prefer the Lord take me today. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to take my own life, though I have thought about it many many times and still do. But I don’t want to cause pain to my family and friends. This is why I’m highly medicated and am seeing a therapist often and am seeing my doctor often. With the help of all the mentioned professionals and myself, we are all working to fight for ME. To keep me above water as I feel I’m drowning. We are all fighting. I fight every single day to keep going. It’s ok to talk about this. The darkness is real.

Now, moving on to the positive part of this post. Again, this is directed at anyone else who is struggling with loss. Loss that feels like it’s weighing you down and you don’t know how to deal with it. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m still in shock, angry, depressed, anxious, and fighting for my own life. But I can pass along what has helped me.

1. Grieve however you need to. Scream, cry, lie in your loved ones’ bed, smell their clothes, get rid of their things, don’t touch their things, talk to others, visit the grave, don’t visit the grave, go through pictures, avoid the pictures. Just try NOT to isolate. Talk about how you’re feeling to someone. Try to think of reasons to stay every morning when you wake up. Counseling and medications are OK.

2. Find a higher power. Mine is God. I find so much of my peace and joy, (yes I said joy because it’s possible when you have God fighting for you), in God…knowing I will see my son again. If I didn’t have that hope, I would seriously not be here today. I’d give up.

3. Find the things that bring you joy. I’m trying to read scripture because you wouldn’t believe how much grief is tackled in the bible. Also, music helps me so much. I listen to ocean sounds when I sleep. Meditate and or pray.

4. Do things for others. I don’t know if this would bring you joy but it sure does me. And it gets you out of your dangerous head.

5. Laugh. Be ok with laughing. You are not betraying your loved one. I promise. (Currently working on this one)

6. Be ok with not being ok.

7. Be ok not recognizing yourself. I’m not who I was before Nick died. Far from it. I’m still trying to figure that part out. You may lose friends over this. You may not be that good time girl anymore or you may not be reaching out to others like you used to and people don’t know how to handle that. They don’t understand you are boggled down with a lot and you don’t even know you’ve dropped the ball. It’s ok.

8. Try to ignore the comments. Try really hard to brush it off. Even friends you thought would never say insensitive things will say insensitive things. “Life goes on”, “You still have other kids to think about”, “be strong for those around you”, “Be thankful you still have your other kids”, “Something good always comes out of the bad”,”God never gives you more than you can handle”. I’ve heard it all. I may distance myself from those people for a while to guard my heart but if it’s meant to be, we will reconnect when things get better. I guarantee you, that if they lost one of their kids, they would not be saying those things. I pray they won’t have to understand.

If you have stuck with me through this long post, kudos to you. I hope it helped you understand the ugly part of grief. But there is also beauty in it. The harder you grieve, the more you loved that person. I will always search crowds for Nick. I will always want to hug young men who remind me of him. I will always wonder why. I will probably always carry the guilt that I didn’t catch something or I will wonder if I could’ve done something different to help him. I will always wish I didn’t go camping. But I’m working hard on myself to get better. Be patient with me. I love you and I know we can get through this.