The Work of Doing Nothing

Summer started for me on June 25th this year, almost two weeks ago. I've tried to stay busy; with tutoring, and taking Grace to her college orientation (Thank God, she's not going to California; she'll be staying right here in Virginia, only an hour or so up the road), and family get-togethers. We've had a 4th of July cookout here and then saw fireworks at Kings Dominion. I've kept the baby here a few nights. We've also kept up with our Monday pizza nights. There have also been a couple of days in which I had to do, and did, nothing. Like today.

It's hard for me to tell if my lack of motivation is depression or just needing to rest. It seems perfectly natural to need a few do-nothing days, complete with naps, especially being a middle school teacher. During the school year I fantasized about having days to sleep in, days when I could lie around listening to the quiet. Now that I've got one of those days, I wonder if there's something wrong with me for letting the entire day go by and not accomplishing a single thing other than taking the dog out. I took a two-hour nap. When I woke up, I thought about making a to-do list, but didn't. Maybe I will later.

It's miserably hot outside. The thermometer attached to the outside of the kitchen window reads 101 - and it's in the shade. With the humidity, it feels like a sauna out there, so I've stayed inside, pacing around, looking at all the jobs that need doing. I'm not doing any of them today.

It seems my grief work is entering a different phase lately. Maybe it's just because I have more time to think about it, but I've been more absorbed with accepting that this loss, this abiding pain, this separation, must be incorporated into who I am, into my very being. Different from the first days and months when I just focused on getting through the day, or the hour, there's an awareness sinking down into my bones now, that I must carry this loss on with me; that it will be part of me through whatever lies ahead, through all the future beginnings and endings, in every meeting and parting, and in every tear and every smile. My heart will forever be different, always partly defined as that of a mother who lost her first child. And although it sounds almost crazy to even say it, as obvious as it is to normal people, it's a heart that finally believes that my sweet, beautiful, loving David is not coming back.

My mind wanders wildly on a do-nothing day like this. I relive hospital events, from the emergency room to signing the organ donation papers. I think about what David should be doing this summer and in the future. I think about how he should be going to the river and to the music festivals with his siblings. I worry about how they are each dealing with his absence. I remember him as a toddler or a trying teen. I think about all the ways his dad and I tried to keep him on the right track. I relive our last, brief conversation on October 30th.

I think about what I should do with myself now, how to live out what David has whispered from the other side, "Take care of yourself, Mom." I think the future could be wonderful for me if I pursue it; as a middle-aged woman with an empty nest, I could almost start over if I want; I could go back to school, plan and carry out an adventure, drive across country, or even take a lover!

Then my mind swings down again. I've been a bit angry, resentful and irritable lately. I don't know who or what I'm angry with, at least not clearly so. I know I feel a little angry with David for not taking his health more seriously. I understand that young men believe they are invincible, and that a headache wouldn't normally indicate something terrible in such a young and healthy guy, but he had it for two weeks! It was a bad headache! I think David was smart enough to know something was wrong. But just about the time I think that, I know that David would have certainly gone for help if he knew what was wrong. But still, when I'm crying, I sometimes fuss at him in my mind, and if alone, I've even yelled out loud between my sobs, "Damn it, David! Why didn't you go to the hospital sooner!!??" Then I imagine him saying, "I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you. I'm okay and you will be too." I imagine him coming and holding me until my sobbing stops, as I know he would if he could. Then I feel guilty for shouting at him.

Sometimes I feel angry at God for not protecting and saving David and our family from from this nightmare, for taking my boy, for giving me a life that seems harder than other people's. But I don't get very far down that road either, because I don't really think God actually "took" David. I do believe David is with God, but as for the reason he left us, I accept the obvious: there was a weak artery wall in David's brain since birth. As the doctor said, "his brain was a ticking time bomb." When I'm tempted to be angry with God for this, for not giving me a perfectly formed child, I can't even formulate a decent argument against Him; suffering has always been part of the human experience and people have always questioned why. As for the magnitude of my suffering, I'm not so blind that I can't see that my suffering is nowhere near what many other people suffer. I didn't lose my boy to suicide or murder, I didn't watch him die a slow, agonizing death, I didn't know when he was born that he would die in his twenties, he didn't die alone on another continent in the horror of war, I didn't lose him to a psychopathic abductor, and I didn't lose my only child.

Sometimes, when I'm out amongst the "normal" people, I resent them, too. I imagine that their lives are free from the agony I am experiencing. I imagine that all the other women around me are carefree, have no significant losses and lead lives of comfort and happiness and fun. I resent them for their easy lives. Then I will actually meet one of them. Like Saturday at the farmer's market. I saw another friend who lost a son, and she introduced me to woman who just happened to be at the market too, another mom who lost a beloved child many years ago. She looked just like a woman I would have resented. She had been talking and laughing and shopping happily as if she hadn't a care in the world. So, clearly resentment is a path that turns in on itself. It goes nowhere. It stifles progress.

The days of sadness still come and go with regularity, but there are more days between them now. The pain of realization, of the permanence of this loss, is still just as sharp; it still hits like me like a crashing wave, it's still like "being hit by a Mac truck", as my friend Heather describes it, but I notice that I recover more quickly, and although I know it will come time and time again, I'm more resigned to it, and more accepting of it as part of my life from now on. I have hope that this change in life will make me a stronger, more useful person. Dan McC. said yesterday that I was already strong and useful before this happened. Well, maybe so, but if I have the chance to grow into someone who is even stronger and more useful, I should try, I should keep moving in that direction, because the alternative, the option of giving in to despair, of finding reasons to give up and slide into a dark hole, well that just isn't really an option at all, is it?

If anyone is still out there reading, please continue to pray for me. I know it must be a drag to see that I'm still sad, that I haven't put this loss behind me and moved on, but the truth is it will never be behind me. I must find a way to live with this loss and live joyfully. I must hope and pray for a different miracle.

Perhaps this is the prayer that God has been wanting to hear all along.

xxoo