Grieving Ryan

A year ago I wrote our Christmas Letter for 2022. I wrote of the many events of that year. I wrote of Ryan's death, of grief along with everything else.  This morning I wrote our letter for 2023. I wrote of the things we have done this year, the changes life has brought, the time we spend with our daughters. I finished the draft. As I started breakfast I was thinking about the revisions I'd make and the things I'd left out.  It was then that I realized Ryan wasn't in it and grief poured over me.  I can't decide if he should have been. A Christmas letter is a way to catch up, to remember a year of living and the events and changes that happened in that year.  Ryan wasn't in 2023. If I were to add him to the letter, what would I say? I don't know.  I'm too overwhelmed with what I do know - that Ryan isn't here.  A whole year has happened. I've woken and slept, moved through each day, and none of those days were about Ryan. He didn't turn 19. I

  They say to expect anniversaries to be hard. These are not celebrations with cake and balloons, but they mark the passage of time just the same. A year of life, a year of death, a moment to note as we humans  attempt to make sense of an ever shifting dimension.  But which day is the anniversary? A year ago today, February 15, Ryan said his brief, unclear goodbyes. He miscued his mother so I wouldn't suspect and he swallowed the pills that ended his life.  It was a year ago tomorrow that my world went sideways, that I told his father and his sister. Feb 16 is the date on the death certificate. Legally Ryan ceased to be the moment I told the 911 operator it had happened.  So which day is the anniversary? The day it happened to him? Or the day it happened to me? Which day do I mourn and cry and fall apart? Which day brings it all back as if it were happening right now, as if I'd just held him a moment ago and now he's gone forever? Which day? All of them. 

 I scattered his ashes in a place we both loved. At least he loved it when he loved anything, before the joy slipped away and all that remained was the struggle to get through the day. It's a beautiful place in a part of the country I thought I would never leave again, until I did. I won't be here to visit him two weeks from now when he'll have been gone a year. So I'm here today instead.  Low tide, quiet water, a gentle breeze, and, of course, the damp. The lapping of the waves is overtaken by the roar of war planes doing their maneuvers from the nearby base. Ryan would have loved the planes and hated their noise. You can't cover your ears and run away from them the way he used to do from the blender.  For me they are a symbol of everything wrong in the world - violence, abusive power, greed, convoluted ideas of freedom that mistake the ability to harm for safety. They represent uncounted millions that could have been resourced for helping kids like mine and thousa

 I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day. I don't mind the red glitter, though it has haunted my house for months and years following a homeschool party. The wasted paper and pre-diabetic sugar highs are no worse than the other Hallmark holidays. The billions spent on roses, chocolate and various bits of pink and red fluff would be better spent on other things, but so would a lot of other dollars. The worst, really, is the way the holiday creates expectations in relationships that generally do more harm than good.  I've developed a practice of discussing expectations with any potential valentine well ahead of the day. I generally aim for some small observance that is low stress and appropriate to the relationship at hand. If I studiously avoid feeding capitalism, I can generally navigate the day with warmth and connection. It can be nice.  So it was that last year Jamie and I enjoyed a casual early dinner out and a walk around a lake for Valentines. No cards, no gi

  When women labor in birth, they sometimes become overwhelmed and say, "I don't want to do this any more." as if there is some choice in the matter.  I never got to that place as I labored to birth my babies, but I find myself there now as I labor in his death. Fruitlessly I say, "I don't want to do this any more." I don't want to dissolve into tears at my husband's loving and concerned expression. I don't want to close my eyes for sleep and be flooded with the image of his cold, pale face in death. I don't want to spin through the thousand things I might have done if only I'd known. I don't want every announcement of 988 to echo with "too late, too late, too late." I don't want my stomach to twist with the literally gut-wrenching pain of losing him.  I don't want to wonder if January will forever be a desperate stretch between the holidays he isn't here for and the anniversary of his death in February. I don

 I started recreating my family photo board today. It's a magnetic board covered collage-style with photos of my children's childhood. Children running, climbing, playing, puzzling, swinging, exploring, and laughing. Their little faces smiling and studious and the occasional smirk. They remind me of the homes we lived in, the places we visited and the people we shared that time with. So many happy memories came flooding back. And it's exhausting.  The tears weren't a surprise. As I gathered the photos and the magnets, I grabbed the tissue box too.  I miss the young man I had breakfast with on February 15, 2022. Even in depression he was a joy to be with. I was incredibly proud of him. I miss the bright child in the photos even more. Over 17 years I captured the moments of joy that came between the tantrums and the pain. The boy on the board had escaped the struggle for a time and become his true self: strategic genius, eager explorer, loving brother, tender animal-lover

 Today someone told me a bit about their life. They are the parent of a depressed and distant teen. They "know better than to push". They invite and hope and hurt when the one they love remains withdrawn.  I've been there. I've walked that road. I want to commiserate, to say I know what you are going through. I want to reassure them that they are doing all they can, to add my experience to theirs. But I can't. My story will only make their life worse. It won't help them to know how I reassured myself that he'd never been suicidal on the very day he was swallowing the pills, perhaps even the same hour. They don't need to hear how many times I didn't push, how many painful invitations I offered and how I forgave myself (and forgive myself still) for the times I couldn't bring myself to invite rejection again, the times I didn't know what was best, when the best I could do was to honor his wishes and hope for a better day. There is no good to

 We had a lovely holiday. Jamie and I had both our girls with us and we gelled as a family of four for the first time. We baked and cooked and ate and told stories of past lives, creating the start of shared traditions. We spoke easily of our memories. I teared up when we talked about Ryan, but I stayed present, I remained myself. As the girls left it all shifted. It's as though time turned back to February, to the first days of life after his life, with my gut in knots and my chest constricted. I don't know what I want or need. I can't remember what I'm doing. I don't seem to be where I am. Jamie reaches out for me, and there is so little here, so little available to reach back with. I reappear for moments when I'm needed, when Megan is here, or for no reason I can tell. Just as mysteriously I dissolve into tears, shake, sob, and my whole body tries to work through this impossible pain with no apparent success.  For ten months writing has eased the grief when i

 Facebook carries bits of past life back to me, snippets that I chose to share with the world as events occurred. It is a window into happy times and sometimes sad times. It is a way to remember. This week there was a celebratory post. Ryan had been free of stomach pain for three days. He was eight. My best guess is that he had been in pain most of those eight years. What was new was my awareness of it.  We had been gluten free for years and he had reported feeling better. As we continued to struggle with violent outbursts and rigid refusals, somehow it occurred to me to ask him specifically about stomach pain. I taught him the pain scale that no child should ever need to know. I asked him, casually every day to rate his pain, and he told me. Some days one. Some days two. Never distressed. Never expecting me to do anything about it. No indication that this was anything but ordinary for him.  It was a slow awakening. Day by day, the matter-of-fact report of pain, so much a part of his l