Grieving Ryan

 For 18 years I've been thinking about what's next for this beautiful, challenging child. The next milestone, the next need, my next mothering task. The next ultrasound The next bottle His next nap A new toy A speech therapist The next exercise A more challenging puzzle His next birthday party Longer pants - again so soon The next Calvin and Hobbes to keep him reading Set up the sensory gym to keep him moving The next playdate  Prepare myself for the next tantrum Sign up for clay camp Find him a school Therapy exercises Foster a dog Gluten free baking Outdoor Adventures His next computer A new phone His driver permit, and practice times Look at colleges Make pancakes tomorrow Call 911 Answer the questions and questions and questions Call his dad, his sister, his grandma with the worst news of their lives. Choose a funeral home Wait for the coroner to call Take him an outfit Say a final goodbye Set a date for the service Plane tickets Rental car Fly Hug my daughter Ask for help...

 I slept seven hours straight last night, more than I have so far in After.  It's not that I woke feeling rested. I'm not even clear what rested feels like in After. It does feel better though, if only because it means I didn't spend hours curled in bed wishing for sleep when all I can do is sob. Sleep is healing, so they say. I believe it to be true. How strange then that just when the most healing is needed sleep becomes elusive.  

48 hours ago I did not know that my son was lying cold in his bed. I did not yet know the gut-wrenching pain that restricts my chest, twists my insides and empties my bowels.  2 days ago I did not yet know that his pain had exceeded his tolerance or that he wasn't in pain any more.  The day before yesterday, I knew whether I wanted a cup of tea and what I would do tomorrow. I took pork out of the freezer for dinner and I knew what would become of the stack of frozen pizzas sitting next to it. Today I suspect that neither the pork nor the pizzas will ever be eaten by anyone. In the life before, time passed in a predictable way. Hours felt like hours and a day lasted 24. Now a minute can last for eons, an hour disappears like fairy dust and the day after tomorrow is an unimaginable mystery too distant to touch.  Tuesday I only knew his sweet face that so easily broke into the most infectious smile I've ever known. I hadn't yet seen it contorted in death. I only remembered t...

For roughly 100 days of this school year, I've set an alarm for 7am. At 7am I make breakfast for Ryan. We spend a few minutes together before he heads out to school. I start his day with a bit more nutrition than he'd find in honeynut cheerios. In exchange I get a few sentences of conversation, a "thanks mom" and maybe a hug.  Precious moments in these last few months before he graduates and moves away.   That was Before. After is different. In After, 7am is when I remember that 24 hours ago . . . 48 hours ago . . . 72 hours ago, I did not yet know that my son was dead. 7am is when I went into the kitchen to make him pancakes, because his final words to me were a text, "Can I have pancakes tomorrow?" 7am I start the pan warming. I pull the leftover batter out of the fridge. I'm looking forward to giving him exactly the breakfast he wants. He doesn't often ask for things. And then I hear his alarm going off and realize something isn't quite right....

I’ve been working for days on a website about my son, who chose to end his life last week. It feels like days. Grief time. It might actually be true that that site originated less than 24 hours ago. Either way, that’s the place I will share my memories of Ryan, celebrate his life, extoll his vibrant smile.  This space is for something different. This space is about grief, and about me, and about how I walk this journey that far too many have walked before me. A journey that is very much like all the others and also entirely unique to me.  I'm writing as a way to move through grief, not to the other side, but to the next part. It's a way to know what I'm thinking, to release what isn't useful, to remember what is precious. I'm sharing because it feels less alone, less pointless. I tell myself that maybe there is something in grief and the way I find to move through grief that might be helpful to someone else.  It's a story that is itself helpful to me.   I expect...