Grieving Ryan

I was never a particularly cautious or fearful parent. I remember toddler playgroups, gathered for children Megan's age and extending younger as siblings arrived. Ryan was one of the littles and one of the most determined to explore new heights. More than once another parent interrupted the mom-chat to point out that Ryan was near the top of an "older kids" play structure.  "Do you see him?" they'd ask, with worry in their tone.  "Yes," I'd answer, "I see him, I'm not worried."  I usually didn't point out the care he was taking with the placement of each hand and foot, always with three of his limbs connected to the structure. Climbing was the right thing for him, the risk was minimal and appropriate to his needs and development. I really wasn't worried.   It was good practice for mothering my older teen who took to the skies as soon as we let her. Again other parents would see her high above the ground, flipping this way ...

This is a post about complexity and non-sense. It's about the space where loss overlaps with blessing, where joy and sadness intermingle, where opposites coexist, where pain and relief arrive together. Yesterday's dreams and tomorrow's hopes diverge entirely without conflicting even as both are painted with grief. This is a post about bad things causing good things, about light that arrives because of the dark. This is a post about pearly silver linings in the stormiest of dark clouds.  Somewhere in the first day of After I discovered that interspersed with the pain and sadness, pleasure and joy still exist. I know that some people feel guilty about that joy, that it feels somehow disloyal to relish a ray of sunshine or a tasty meal. It occurred to me to wonder if I should go ahead with a wedding so soon after his death.  For me that part was easy. Yes, of course I would continue to have joy in my life. Yes to the wedding as planned, yes to enjoying tasty meals and soaking ...

 I planned to write this post some days ago. I planned it to follow closely the post about doing surprisingly well with a post describing when I'm not. As I opened the browser window that day and typed the title, I told myself it was a good time to write about when I'm not doing well because I wasn't.   It had been the worst morning in a while. I'd woken up weeping, pouring out a flood of  emotions that can only be called grief and which five little letters can't begin to describe. Throughout that day I felt drained. I couldn't tell whether it was because I'd worn myself out sobbing, or simply that grief was so very heavy. Client calls were both welcome relief and an exhausting slog.  It was the perfect day to write about Not, except that in that day's Not, the words refused to come. I sat at my computer and willed words to make sense of the nonsensical, but they didn't.  It was the perfect day to write about Not, except I couldn't.   So I left t...

 People ask me how I'm doing. Or they say they won't ask how I'm doing, because how would I be doing? Or they ask how I'm holding up.  In short, they offer me space to share what I wish about my current reality, generally with a great deal of generosity and compassion.   I don't tell them I'm fine, or I'm OK.  I prefer to tell them the truth, which for the last couple of weeks has been this: I'm doing surprisingly well . . . except when I'm not.  It seems important to write about the surprisingly well because I'm mostly inclined to write when I'm not. I write when emotions are high, when intensity and passion give me something to say. High emotion, intense grief, passionate memories - these are part of my everyday now in a way they've never been before, but they don't account for most of my minutes.  Most minutes I'm doing surprisingly well.  Surprisingly well isn't me at my best. Sometimes it doesn't even feel like me, bu...

I wish I'd hugged him the last time I saw him. I wish I'd texted "I love you." when he asked for pancakes so he could say, "I love you too." On that last morning together as we talked about the hard things that life requires, I wish I'd said, "We'll do them together." I wish I'd asked him to play a game. I wish I'd known how hopeless he was and sat with him in that space.   I wish I'd crawled into bed with him and held him one more time that morning before the coroner came to take him away. I wish I hadn't been too afraid of death to hold him when I could, even when he wasn't really there any more. It's not that I think any of that would have changed his choice. It's not about wishing I could have stopped him, though of course I do.  This is wishing for one more moment of connection, one more memory of motherhood, one more smile, one more tiny tangible bit of love.  

 I don't know our Wifi password.  I always ask Ryan. I sort of know it. I could write it down. That would be efficient. But I prefer to ask him.  I like that he's in charge of that one important thing. It's nice to depend on him. It honors his near-adulthood in some way. So I have persistently not learned our Wifi password.  Today I need it. I need him. It's working exactly as I've intended, only today he is not here for me to depend on. Today the password is one more dark place in a great big sea of emptiness where he should be.  So I found a way to ask him. I searched through more than a year of texts about dinner plans and "I'm busy with friends. I'll just make my own." and "Thanks mom." and "We just landed." And in the midst of everyday life, I found the moment when I had asked him for the password and he told me: BasicOcean I'll write it down now. I'll find a way to remember. And every time I need it, I'll think...

 I wrote a description of Ryan's life for his memorial.  We shared it on his memorial website . It's the draft that felt right to share at the time, the most comfortable for other family members, the safest somehow.  Here in the space where I share my most authentic thoughts, it feels right to share the first draft of Ryan's life story, the one that most closely reflects the way I saw him, a mother's view of a treasured child.  Ryan Charles Gimnig was a gentle giant and a hidden gem. He arrived in the world on May 31, 2004, 10 pounds and 2 ounces of pure curiosity. For months he quietly studied the world as it came within view. Then he discovered he could go to the world, and he certainly did. He ran, climbed and explored his way through toddler years, learning his limits through 2 broken arms and untold leaps and tumbles. Ryan was a child of contradictions. He was fearless to jump and climb yet cautious enough to study before he acted. He ras rough and tumble with h...

Sometimes early on grief consumed my whole body. My legs gave out so I couldn't possibly stand. An emptiness formed in my gut as solid and dense as lead, balling up in my belly and forcing its way into my throat where finally it could be released in sobs that wracked my whole being, only to gather again the next minute. Or hour. Or day.  Sometimes still grief consumes my whole body, but more often now it persists quietly in my left shoulder where it has lived for years.  It is the physical memory of the weight and shape of his head.   When he was very small, barely out of his crib, he arrived each morning, warm and still sleepy.  He climbed into my lap, nuzzled his head into my shoulder and snuggled into his day. That was before I knew, before the tantrums began to tell the tale of an unhealthy child. That was when my sweet blonde baby was in perfect health, save a bit of torticollis no one was concerned about.  As he grew he arrived on my shoulder by a dif...