The Ghost of Birthdays Past

Yesterday we had a wonderful party, but there was a ghost.

It was the shared birthday of E2 and E3 -- the third birthday for the middle child who last year got a baby sister for her birthday and the smash cake extravaganza of a first birthday for the least of the grandbabies. Mom had gone all out and planned a splendid affair with the theme of Princesses and Pirates, because although she has three little girls, there are a lot of little boys in her circle of friends. The same cast of characters that I've come to expect at every birthday party for four years was there with some new additions, but we were missing one.

Ethan.

It was a glorious party. Beyond the cake, which featured the princess of the year Sofia (Sofia the First) as well as Jake (from Jake and the Pirates) there were games, tiaras and swords, eye patches and wands. Although I saw one father of three wearing his daughter's tiara, the boys pretty much avoided the girl glitz. Little girls, however, were apt to be wearing tiaras and carrying swords. From turning on the princess bounce house, where there was much joy to be had, to Little Miss with pink frosting in her hair, a pinata on the church playground, and baby after her bath in the kitchen sink, it was an action packed two hours. Odds are good that everyone slept well last night. I think I even relived bits of it in my dreams.

I was photographer for the event, looking for special images to capture the day for Mom and the girls. After 25 years as a journalist at small papers where I did double duty as photographer, that's the role I'm generally assigned. That, along with an unofficial co-host (a role grandmothers get when there are so many little ones) kept me pretty busy.

Sometime during church service, however, while I was anticipating a big time, it hit me that there would be a ghost at the party -- or not at the party, depending on how one looked at it. After the party, after the cleanup and the loading of tired and cranky girls, packages and leftovers, I completely fell apart.

I knew that I would have to fall apart on his birthday, but I didn't realize every birthday party was going to bring on the pain.

Ethan loved birthday parties. He loved children, and cake and, although whatever it was that made him feel separate always kept him standing in the background, he would have been there. E1 would have been so happy to see him. Although he wasn't around a lot, she doted on him and her sisters would have come to do so as well.

At all the birthday parties, he's been a shadow in the background. One I didn't always take the time to photograph while focusing on the little people, but who I can find bits and pieces of in most of my birthday pictures.

Yesterday, however, there was no warm, swallowing hug, no smart remarks about my pirate get up, no beautiful smile, no big, gentle hands catching little people, or getting a second helping of cake, or helping with cleanup.

The last time I saw him was at E1's birthday in August, nearly four months before he died. He'd been using again, but not that night and he enjoyed visiting with cousins, eating grilled hot dogs, cake and homemade ice cream in my front yard. I made not one single, decent photo of him, although I can still feel that last hug in the driveway when he left with my parents (he didn't have a license any more), still see him getting in the car, riding in the back seat while my dad stopped to make some smart remark before leaving.

I wish the party hadn't take so much of my time and that I'd had more time to just be with him, but there's a million of those things I would change if I could have a redo. None of them are an option, so I just have to learn to live with my regrets.

Learning more about addiction, I know that although he seemed to have fun, he didn't get the pleasure from those gatherings that we do. I've learned that his drug took over his mind so much that it was the only thing that could bring him real pleasure and that, perhaps, he stood back not just because he often didn't feel he fit in, but because in the back of his mind he may have been thinking about when he left and getting high again and how he knew that would hurt us but he couldn't stop himself.

I know he was filled with love for his nieces, his sister, and the rest of his family and friends, but not enough love for himself to realize that somehow, he was worth taking care of and saving. I know he would never have wanted to ruin a party for any of us, he would want to enjoy it with us.

Yet these parties and family gatherings, the times when I could have usually counted on seeing him, are going to be the toughest times for a while. I'd grown used to his absence in so many ways that it's almost easy to get through the days without focusing on the fact that he's not just a phone call away and he's not going to randomly call me. Almost. And when we are all together, there's enough activity that one often silent young man, may not be missed in the heat of the moment.

It's afterwards when everything becomes a memory that I store away that his memory is buried a little further back under the new memories. It's while I'm downloading pictures and almost looking to see where he was at. It's while I'm looking at the faces of children and remembering another child long ago. That's when it hits me like the train that didn't cause the crossing guard to drop, sending me spinning into dark places where I feel my heart shatter into a thousand pieces yet again.

I'm glad the girls share a birthday, so there will only be two of these parties to get through this year, not three. But I already know that the one in mid August will be hard. I will want to be very busy and very involved, not looking for another ghost in the shadows.

Because he won't be there at all, although he'll be everywhere for me.

Ethan's memory, his ghost if you will, caused me pain yesterday, but thinking about him this morning has brought me smiles as well as tears. That ghost that lingers around birthday parties is one I'll have to come to terms with and, eventually, be happy to see because it's a happy spirit and those are happy memories. What makes them painful is that they are just that, memories.

There will be no new memories, but Ethan lives forever in my heart.

Lessons I've Learned From Grief -- Part Two

Life is full of grief.

When I was little, I grieved over my cat running away or breaking a toy. When I was older I grieved because the boy I liked didn't like the girl with frizzy hair and braces, because my grandparents had the German shepherd I'd grown up with put to sleep without letting me say goodbye.

By high school, it seems I grieved over everything.

I still remember how bad it hurt to find out that my first date had stayed for the second show at the movies and hooked up with someone else. I grieved the loss of my two best friends when the ex-boyfriend of one of them asked me out, turning me into a social pariah my senior year. I grieved that the boy who sat behind me in social studies and aggravated me would never ask me out because we were just friends.

Then real life came rolling along and I discovered there were bigger things to grieve about and bigger hurts that lasted longer, like a marriage where I was the only one who was ever at home, first in an empty house and then with a baby. I grieved for the dog I'd had since I was a teenager, the cat who wiggled her way into my heart then ran across the road, another dog, for the end of that marriage, the loss of my paternal grandparents, the loss of the job I wanted to do for all my life.

But I picked myself up and went on to another marriage where I learned about addiction and pain and the grief of loving a person who couldn't always be the person you loved, until I couldn't love him any more and be safe or sane and I grieved another marriage. I found another job I loved, and another, and wound up grieving for them as well. I grieved the loss of more dogs, a few more cats, my maternal grandparents.

I thought that each grief helped prepare me for coping with the next one, and maybe it did. Grief was brought on by losses that were harder to get over, harder to pick myself up from. Yet even as I mourned the loss of my Jack Russell terrier Al last spring I thought, "How do people survive those really big losses without some training from the little ones?" Saying goodbye to hamsters and cats and dogs, teaching our hearts about mourning and recovery, surely has to help when it's our grandparents, our parents, or someone else.

And maybe it does, but it seems that we're in training for those foreseeable losses. We have to be able to envision a world where we say goodbye to those people. It's part of the reality we accept as we grow older and those comparatively little losses, while they may stagger us at the time, are like the training wheels on our bikes and they teach us to balance and keep going.

I've learned, however, that nothing trains you for losing a child. Nothing prepares you, even the doctor's diagnosis, the sudden silence of a fetal heartbeat, standing by the bedside of a child who is no longer really in the body you've bathed and cherished, or watching them slip away through years of addiction. Nothing.

No matter how much you think you're prepared, as a parent, all you do is hope for a mistake, a miracle, even misidentification. It cannot be your child that is dying, or your child that is dead. Even now I wake up some mornings hoping it's all been a bad dream. I go to bed at night hoping I can dream about him, just so I can see and hear him again.

Losing Ethan taught me that there is no way to be prepared for dying, no real way to be prepared for living. Love opens us up to the most incredible pain that destroys us in ways that no physical trauma ever can. Yet we do it, and do it again because it also brings us unmatched joy and because it is who and what we are meant to be and do.

But just as I learned about grief, I learned about myself. There were lessons I learned on that morning six weeks ago, lessons I've learned every day since, and lessons I continue to learn.

I didn't know I'd be able to share my pain. Really. There was a while when it felt like something I should lock into a box in my heart and treasure as something that separated me from the world. It wouldn't take the place of Ethan, but I could love my pain and suffering. I could keep it to myself and take it out when I was alone to wallow in self pity. I could wall it up and, without meaning to, let that wall stand between myself and the people I cared about and who care about me. I could let that wall keep me from moving forward down the path I've been given to walk.

But somehow that didn't happen and I know from messages and calls, from unexpected hellos and hugs, that God is using me to help other people. I never aimed to be used in this way, but I cannot deny it and turn away either. I've always had words in my heart and although I've never used them this way, it was because I never had these words to use. There was a reason they were always there and perhaps this is it. I didn't know that so many people were hurting, and that my words would be more than a salve to my own battered heart, but perhaps the words that they needed as well.

I know that is a singular lesson of my grief, but there's a greater lesson in grief that many of us learn unexpectedly. As my capacity to endure pain has grown beyond anything I expected, I've found that I not only grieve for myself but for the world around me. When I learn of someone else's loss, I stand at the brink of the same pit they are falling into and remember the pain of the plunge. When someone is in pain, battling a difficult diagnosis, struggling with an issue in their lives, I want to help. I want to reach out and tell them someone cares, even if it is someone they hardly know or don't know at all. I pray for people I've never met because I cannot reach them to let them know I care.

It seems in tearing down the wall that would have held my pain in, I've also torn down the one that kept the world's pain out.

When I manage to leave the house, I realize that I see the world differently. I don't feel as harsh toward the less than perfect people around me, more caring toward the seemingly disenfranchised, a desire to hug people who look as though they need one. I'm less inclined to be judgmental because I realize so many people are like me, burdened with things that not everyone knows.

The world is a tougher place than we realize when we are living our blissfully unaware, day-to-day lives and dealing with the easy things like getting where we're supposed to be on time, doing household chores, paying bills and even fighting over the things which turn out to be inconsequential.

When we finally have to cope with the hard things, we realize we're actually not as tough as we thought.

If we're lucky, we realize that about everyone and like many things about grief and loss, it changes who we are.

Lessons I've Learned from Grief -- Part One

While I've ranted and raved about my own emotional train wreck in the wake of losing my son, I've learned a lot about not only myself but the people around me. I'm not sure which lessons have been the most unexpected.

I've learned the world is full of more heartache than I ever imagined, and that my particular brand of pain -- the loss of a child to drug addiction -- is far too common.

I've discovered other people can understand my pain in many different ways.

By reaching out, I've met people who have experienced very similar losses to addiction. Included in this group of struggling parents are those who are so close to this pain every day, that they can almost feel it. Like I was for years, they're already grieving the loss of the child they thought they knew while loving the one they have. They're fearing that phone call that will destroy their final hope. Others, like myself, are dealing with that final loss. On either side of goodbye, there is a bond that means we can talk to one another in ways we cannot talk to anyone else. In addition to our pain, we deal with so many questions about how things might have been different. We deal with people judging us for not doing enough or maybe too much. We deal with our own inaccurate sense of failure in somehow not producing a child who could face the world unaided by the crutch of an addiction.

There are other people whose childloss is different -- different circumstances, different degrees of preparation, small children as well as those who've walked through childhood, even adult children -- who also share my pain. At it's heart the loss of a child and all the potential we saw in that child from birth is the same. We have lost a piece of ourselves and will never feel whole again.

Still others grieve for something else. Any loss is the loss of dreams, whether it is a beloved pet, a job, health, a parent, or a child, pain is pain. There are degrees of hurt and the duration may vary, but virtually everyone knows about loss. Our grief is a shared bond and I've been humbled by the outpouring of love and kindness from friends, virtual strangers, and people I only met because of my loss.

I've discovered that my friends who are blessed to have no real idea at this time in their lives also care. They've sent cards and messages, they've telephoned and showed up on my doorstep. They've been a good reminder that the world isn't completely filled with pain or uncaring strangers either. Even my friends who seem to have disappeared during this time in my life are a reminder that not everyone is strong enough to share this burden for someone else, and I'm working on releasing the nugget of resentment that I sometimes feel at their absence.

Beyond that are the random people who humble me the most. They are the people who I don't really know, and who, as far as I know have no reason to fear or understand my pain, but who still keep reaching out to me with gestures from the heart. They leave me staggered at their love and generosity and realizing even through the tears, that they are showing me God's love in ways I never expected.

While everyone who reaches out is doing their part to help everyone they touch heal and live, those people who don't feel my pain, who didn't even have names before Ethan died, can bring me to unexpected tears. Out of those tears, sometimes, I find an equally unexpected blessing, not only in what they have done, but what it may take me a little while to see.

Although I rant and rave to the heavens about my feelings, about how God was supposed to take care of Ethan and by gosh this wasn't what I meant and I'm so hurt and alone, I'm not forgotten. The cards unexpectedly delivered and the angel that brought me to tears weren't just the thoughtfulness of people who want me to know they care. They were the works of His hands and feet on this earth.

Feeling Guilty For Feeling Good

There are times when I find myself enjoying the day and I almost feel guilty. A brilliant sunset, a warm doggy snuggle, or even enjoying a movie and laughing with friends can send a pain through my heart if I let it.

I know so many moms -- some face to face and some just through cyberspace -- that when I have a good day, I wonder if I've missed some important step and gotten too far ahead of myself.

I'm far from done with grieving, I know, but I have never been as consumed by it as some people are. Is it because I had been grieving in bits and pieces for years? Is it because the addiction that stole my son had damaged our relationship so that I didn't even really know him any more? Is it because he did not have a part in my day to day life? Is it because the demands of life haven't allowed me the time I need to do it right?

Ethan's loss wasn't a sudden one, like parents suffer when a child dies in an accident or from a previously unknown health condition. It was gradual, over time. It was as though he had an illness that was likely to prove terminal, but doctors had not given him some set period of time. No physician ever told him, "Barring a miracle, you've got six months to live." At the same time, I knew deep in my heart that if he did not stop, it would kill him somehow.

Still, like parents who live with a terminally ill child, I hoped for that miracle right up until the day I learned he was gone. Miracles do happen, and although I'm still inclined to turn the radio or TV when I hear of someone beating addiction through prayer, the fact that Ethan didn't get that particular miracle doesn't make them any less real. I guess if they happened for everyone, we wouldn't call them miracles any more.

Yesterday, the thought crossed my mind as I headed to town for my Zumba class and to have coffee with a friend that I still feel like the tractor-trailer loaded with grief may hit me. I may think I've crossed the road, only to find out there is another vehicle coming the way I didn't look. I may be like the squirrel on the yellow line, scrambling in every direction and not seeing the truck that is going to get me just when I think I'm home free.

Has the toughest part of losing him passed, or will it hit on his birthday, or Mother's Day, or maybe next year on the anniversary of his death? Will it accumulate with every day that I don't hear his voice until I finally crumble? Will it be a song that reminds me of him, or cooking a pot of macaroni (his favorite food, which of course, the girls love)? Will I see a young man walking on the side of the road who all of sudden takes my breath because just for a minute he's Ethan and this whole horrible thing has been a nightmare?

Or will it be all of those things, as I have a sinking suspicion it may be.

Perhaps I can hope that it will be like a receding tide and the highest waves have already crashed ashore. Sure, there will still be big waves that knock me off my feet and they'll be brought on by the little things and all the big things as well. But most of the the time they may only wash around my ankles or remind me of their presence as they crash before coming ashore.

Perhaps, instead of feeling guilty for having a good day with friends or family, I should feel grateful for those times when I'm free for just a moment from the burden of grief.

There are people who proclaim on a warm January day, "We'll pay for this later," when I choose to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the break without worrying about next week's Arctic blast. Perhaps I need to learn to look at my grief the same way. Yesterday, I was spared the heartbreaking pain and I enjoyed the day. I won't waste the good times worrying about the hard times that may come.

Everybody Hurts Sometimes

If you're on your own in this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes
--Peter Buck, Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Michael Mills (performed by R.E.M.)

The other day I was talking to a good friend on the phone and she said she just could not imagine what I was going through. She just wanted to spend some time with me.

Not too long ago, I remember when she was going through a really tough situation where I didn't think I knew how to identify with her and we cried and laughed our way through it. Since I've known her she's said hard goodbyes to parents and siblings and lives every day with the prospect of another heartbreaking loss.

Through the last five short, and yet seemingly endless, weeks, I've realized that most of the people we come into contact with on a day to day basis can feel some version of our pain.

As unique as my grief felt on Dec. 15th, it was like a drop of rain falling into a summer pond at the start of a storm. All around me, I've found there were nearly identical drops of rain falling, other mothers and fathers who have lost their sons and daughters, and different drops from the loss of siblings, spouses and parents. I've realized that there are very different drops from all sorts of losses -- the loss of health, the loss of independence, the loss of divorce, even the loss of a career. There is a storm of loss and grief going on around us while we are focused on our own individual drops of pain.

I've also realized that while the source of our grief is very different, making us think that our situations are so unique and sometimes beyond what anyone else endures, our pain is very similar.

Whatever loss we are grieving, what we are really grieving is the loss of the future.

As humans, we have the unique ability to think about the future. We envision watching our children grow to adulthood. We think about their lives and the spouses they may bring into our families, their future happiness, unborn grandchildren. Even if we don't sit down and daydream about the lives they will lead, our minds make these possible futures seem a part of the reality that we expect to live.

The same is true with any kind of loss. Either consciously or unconsciously, we plan for the future. We plan to grow old with the the person we stand beside and say "I do." We intend to be able to do certain things for ourselves. We plan to have our brothers and sisters to share our lives. We expect to have our parents until some undefined point in our future. We think we'll have our careers to support us until we retire.

Then those futures are gone and we grieve. Yes, some of these griefs are more intense and stay with us. In all likelihood, we will find another job and perhaps another spouse. We may adjust our expectations for our health or the health of those around us so that life goes on and that loss becomes our new normal. We come to accept the time that our parents leave this life, even though we still miss them. The loss of a sibling or friend varies with how close we manage to stay, and eases as life moves on without them.

Everybody grieves and hurts at some time.

Losing a child is a bigger ripple in the peaceful pond of our lives. I realize both from my own limited experience and that of people who have endured their loss years ago, that while the ripples from other grief may subside this pain will never pass.

I think in many ways it is still because we are grieving that future, because with the loss of a child we lose not only their future but our own. We lose a link to a time we will never see.

As mothers, we lose all the potential we created when we grew them inside our bodies for nine months of careful eating, swollen ankles and pain. As parents, we lose the baby we held in our arms and all the unrealized dreams we saw each time we looked at them as they grew.

We never lose the past, however long that was and however many memories we managed to store in our hearts and minds, but we lose the future. We lose knowing the person they would have become in a few more years. We lose having them to love, and to love us, as we grow old. We may lose the children they never had and all those possibilities as well.

There is a bond in grief that those who have not lost a child can retrieve and find some empathy for us, just as when they have loss we can relate with a small part of what we feel.

Everybody hurts. I've come to believe that the difference isn't so much in the intensity of the pain as in the duration.

Everybody hurts and I have come to realize that the pain for a while may seem unbearable, no matter what the loss. It's just that for some of us, it will never entirely go away.

Sometimes, for a Moment, the Sun Still Shines

I've discovered that the overwhelming bouts of grief aren't the only thing that comes in waves for me.

When I began thinking about my grief, it was like walking near the ocean in the dark and occasionally being hit by a large wave that would sometimes pull me out to sea for a while.

My perspective has changed a little. It's no longer dark, although the large waves are still sometimes seemingly out of nowhere and take me completely by surprise. Now my walk feels more like walking on the beach when a hurricane is somewhere in the distance. My steps are often a struggle in the wet sand and the sky overhead is cloudy and threatening and sometimes the waves coming ashore are bigger than I would have expected.

Now I find that during this walk on a cloudy beach, listening to the rush of the water and sand, feeling the wind from the distant storm, sometimes the sun breaks through.

When it does, there are glorious moments when I can accept what has happened and feel a joy in my heart again for Ethan.

I had one of those moments Saturday while out running errands. I was in my car and listening to a CD, maybe even Natalie Grant's "Hurricane," but the music was secondary to the brilliant blue sky arching above me and the chilly radiance of the winter sun.

Suddenly it came to me that Ethan was no longer sitting in his apartment in Galax, and that was a good thing. He was no longer trapped there, waiting for earthly confines to bring us together for a few brief moments that would be fraught with our shared knowledge of his addiction and his lonely knowledge of his pain. I can no longer physically hold him in my arms, but I'll never let him out of my heart, and for just a moment I felt him all around me. He was no longer confined as I am, but he was free and a part of everything I saw.

Last week my father dreamed about Ethan and told my mom his dream. They were together at a house my father used to own and for some reason my dad expected him to be in jail.

"I thought they were holding you in Galax," he said in the dream.

"I got out," Ethan said, and I can just imagine the confident look he would have had. "Just wait until you hear the dogs."

To me my dad's dream had a different meaning.

For a long time, he had been held in Galax. He had lived in a homeless shelter and a cramped apartment. But what had really held him in Galax had been life and his addiction, and he had, indeed, gotten out. I knew in my soul the joy that he felt in finally making his escape and finally being free of the demons that had haunted him for so long.

Ethan got out. He's no longer being held in his physical body and for that reason I can no longer hold him in my physical arms.

I hate the way he left almost as badly as I hate the fact that he's gone, but he's only gone from this part of my life. For 23 years, I held him in my arms whenever I had the chance. But he lived in my heart before I ever held in my arms and he'll be there for the rest of my physical life as well.

And sometimes, I know now, I'll feel him in the sunlight and the very air I breathe.

Perhaps the hurricane will move on out to sea and I'll only battle the occasional waves of sorrow. I know that even when the storm passes, there will always be clouds and unexpected waves, but I also know now that there will be times when I can walk in the sun and be happy.

I know that while I can no longer touch Ethan, there will be times when I feel him touch me and that will have to be enough for a mother's grieving heart for now.

Prayers Are More Powerful Than We Know

I'm praying for you.

Often when we say those words, we often feel inadequate. It means we don't have anything more to offer, other than kind words that may not be heard, or a shoulder that won't be strong enough to share the burden.

During the last month, however, I've found that those words are a lot more powerful than we think.

There have been many days when it feels like the prayers of my friends are the net that catches me when I fall. Yes, I still fall, but it's not the bone crushing landing that I expect. Instead, I bounce back like the high wire walker making a misstep who bounces on the net, then comes back to his feet and climbs back up the ladder to go again. The fall is frightening and I feel like I'll plunge into the dark pit of grief and never climb out, but before I disappear into the abyss, the net of prayer catches me. I climb back up the ladder of life and start walking again.

Yesterday morning I received an unexpected sympathy card. For a couple of weeks the sympathy cards and Christmas cards mingled in my mailbox, a sad statement of the mixed joy and sadness the season brought, but there hadn't been any cards in a while.

Yet this friend, who I've worked with on some animal rescues, remembered me. She sent a card to tell me, beyond the sweet verses, that she was praying for me still and that my friends love and care about me. Far more than the card, which was nice, her handwritten words buoyed me up for another day.

Occasionally friends will message me that they are praying for me. Sometimes it's in response to a new struggle, and sometimes just a note to remind me they are there and care. Yet I know in my soul that there are prayers being said that I don't ever know about, because without them I could not be making it day to day.

I'll pray for you.

Those words are so much more powerful than we give them credit for being, because a prayer is a message to God and although we aren't always sure of the answer, He listens and responds. Without that response I know that I'm not alone in being a person who could not make it through another day.

We've all heard the misused saying that God will not put upon us more than we can bear, when in fact He regularly allows more than we can bear ALONE to come into our lives. (The actual verse 1 Corinthians 10:13 reads in part But God is faithful; He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able to bear and refers to temptation). Instead He gives us more than we can bear so we will turn to Him, and the way to do that is through prayer and faith.

In order to really rely on God and trust in God, we don't need to believe that He won't allow us to suffer more than we can bear, we have to believe that we won't be alone and He will be there to see us through. That's facing up to our limitations and knowing that we're not strong enough. That's a reality that I've had to face. When people look at me and say, "You're so strong," or "I don't know how you can bear it," the answer is I'm not, and I can't, at least not alone.

Alone I would stay in the bed and be of no use to anyone. Alone the sorrow would consume me. Alone I would have no hope that this has a purpose and that I have to work and suffer to fulfill my part of it, just as Ethan had to suffer for a time to fulfill his part in it.

I have to admit that there have been times in the past when I've looked at people and wondered how they went on. I've wondered how they had the strength, the courage, the faith to face another day and let the tragedy that had overtaken them become not just part of who they were, but a blessing to others. Now I know that it is a trial by fire and from the outside it's impossible to comprehend. It's clinging to the small lifeline of your own faith and allowing prayers and God to do the work that puts you back together and keeps you moving.

I still look at some of those people and know I'm a long way from there, but I feel the net of prayers holding me up and I know I have to get up and keep moving. I know it's not my prayers alone, because I'm just one voice and sometimes my voice falters and grows quiet. Without those who remember me, I believe I still might fall.

So instead of prayer being our last resort when we cannot think of anything to do ourselves, it should be the first thing we think of. We shouldn't undervalue its importance in times of tragedy, or in our day-to-day lives.

Ask for prayers. Send up prayers. Strengthen one another with prayers.

And don't feel like you're doing nothing. Recognize that you're doing the absolute best thing you can do.

I Realize I've Misplaced a Lot of Myself

I realized Thursday evening while inspecting a random smear of strawberry yogurt on my jeans that I really couldn't remember when I had put on clean clothes. Was that a fresh smear, or not? Was it really strawberry yogurt?

I could remember showers and clean underwear. Wardrobe changes for church and workouts, but just everyday clothes, no.

Unless I plan ahead, most mornings I just grab whatever I've had on the day before. The dogs and children don't care and they will quickly turn anything that is actually clean into something covered in wet paw and nose prints, and smears of everything from strawberry yogurt to snot and poop. If I aimed to stay clean I'd be undergoing a wardrobe change every hour or so. Most days I look like I'm ready to star in an episode of "What Not to Wear."

The amount of clothing in the hamper this morning says that I've changed clothes occasionally or it's been a really long time since I did laundry. The basket of clothes from which I pulled the clean jeans, tank, and long-sleeved shirt argue that it hasn't been that long.

The fact of the matter is that having abandoned a nice wardrobe when I decided to spend my time with dogs and children, the cleanliness of my clothes stopped being a priority. When things that I had really given some thought slipped off the radar, the state of my wardrobe became a non-issue altogether.

So I've put on clean clothes, that was fairly easy. At the same time, I really have to start paying attention to the things that mean something to me.

I used to exercise, not only for weight management, but for health. I was self-motivated and rode my recumbent bike a time or two a day. Between DVDs and YouTube, I could grab a PiYo or Zumba session any time. I keep a 30-day Ab/Squat challenge on my refrigerator and was midway through repeating it for the second time in December when along with Ethan it sometimes feels like I lost myself. I can't motivate myself any more. I do go to class a couple of times a week, but that's support and companionship as much as exercise. Even then, a song can trigger an emotion that will have me slipping down the stairs to hide out in the restroom while I regain control of myself.

Aside from high intensity workouts, I used to walk lots of dogs almost every day -- health and really bad weather were my only excuses -- and I really enjoyed it. The dogs enjoy it and it is good for the mental health of everyone involved. Now just a slight chill in the air, and face it, it is January, will be enough of an excuse to send me back into the house most mornings. I miss it, yet I haven't been able to convince myself it was worth the effort more than a couple of times in the last month.

While I used to aim to eat healthy, now food is just something that I eat, when I can muster up an appetite for something. Cravings generally haven't been for what I know is good for me, but it seems its either eat what I want or nothing. While that may be balancing out (I wouldn't know as I also haven't resumed a relationship with my scale, but my clothes aren't changing in their fit, but then again if you wear them a while -- oh, who knows), I don't have any numbers to be sure and skinny isn't the same as healthy.

I vaguely wonder if a day at a beauty salon/spa would make me feel better, but my hair hasn't been professionally handled in almost five years and I went shampoo free a year ago, so I don't imagine it would handle the shock well. Although I know the gray ages me, the thought of maintenance to fight it is too daunting to even begin. At the same time, I've never had a manicure or pedicure and with the dog wrestling of a typical week and the random acts of gardening that even now are likely to crop up, my nails are a wasteland. A massage might feel nice, but at the same time it would create that prolonged period of quiet that I've worked to avoid the last month, so it's questionable.

My poor husband is another topic. While not Ethan's father, he did love and care for him, which is more than his birth father managed to do. He cannot touch my grief, however, but tries to support me and tell me that it's OK to feel as I do and work my way through it. Still, between our schedules and my general lack of self motivation, I feel he's getting short changed in a lot of ways that I need to start correcting.

What little energy I have most days is exhausted on three small girls who hit Ma's house wide open. They are completely devoid of any care for my physical appearance, emotional stability or level of energy. They are a great tsunami of need and self absorption (like any small children) that sweeps everything away just for a little while. They are my daily salvation because I can't give myself much slack in dealing with them -- it's not an option. With them I have to be fully alive and alert, no matter how much coffee it takes.

In other words, I'm all to hell and I know it.

At the same time, I've found that finding out what is wrong is often the first step to fixing it. Just as I have to recognize a problem, facing it head on and evaluating it helps get me moving toward correcting it. That's the plan here.

I've cocooned myself in my home with three little tyrants and one noble knight for a while now. I may not emerge a butterfly, or even one of those not quite pretty gray moths, but I don't think I can keep tolerating the person I'm letting myself become.

The sky is blue and cloudless and I think there are dogs waiting for me as soon as the sun tops the trees. Seeing me bundled up in sneakers with leashes in my hand will give them a joy they deserve for always being there. I think walking down the road and back may be the first steps back to finding me.

Not the same me, who still thought life would eventually work out and prayers be answered, but a version of me just the same. A me who realizes prayers are answered in ways we don't understand and that we will never, this side of heaven, know the meaning of the faltering steps in this journey we call life.

Thirty-two Days And Counting

I survived the first anniversary of sorts. Despite my worries, I didn't fall apart, even when the memorial necklace I ordered off Etsy turned up in the mailbox shorthly after noon. Somehow, it seemed only fitting.

I know that at least for a while, the 15th of every month will bring a sense of dread. Now it's been one month, soon it will be two, then three, six, a year. Life, God willing, will keep rolling on and pulling me right along with it, no matter what part of the past I might want to cling to.

A friend who lost her son several years ago told me earlier this week that the dread was usually worse than the actual date itself. It turns out she was right. Thinking about how it was going to be had a whole lot more weight to it than actually living the day itself.

I've found in one month that the problem with grieving is that life gets in the way.

No matter how much some part of me has wanted to do the sackcloth and ashes bit and sit in a corner pulling my hair, there is an even larger part of me that wants to live each day fully, maybe doubly because Ethan isn't living it any more. His legacy isn't going to be about grief, it's about living and making a difference, about reaching out to other people who are hurting like I am and propping one another up on days that we feel like we're falling, its about doing everything I can to help keep this pain from happening again, even if it is only in one life.

I don't know how I'm going to do all that, but I know weeping and wailing won't do it. They won't even come close.

Not only do I want to live and make a difference, I decided years ago that I couldn't let his addiction wreck the rest of the family. I could not always be there for him because other people needed me -- not just his sister, but my first granddaughter and through the years her two younger sisters. Because I'm not just "Ma," but babysitter as well, I can't take time off from family life to grieve. I can't take bereavement days from what is a 40-hour-a-week labor of love.

Meeting their needs on a day-to-day basis gets in the way of worrying about the needs I can no longer meet.

You cannot spend too much time languishing on might-have-beens, when you're surrounded by what might be; you cannot spend too much time thinking about what if, when the sudden silence in the other room probably means someone is either writing on a wall or playing in a sink.

So, just as it has for every day since Dec. 15, the needs of the living -- mine and the people around me -- pulled me through the day yesterday.

The diagnosis of SPD (Sensory Processing Disorder) in E1 has added a new twist to those days as yesterday was not only the one month anniversary of losing my son, but also her first full therapy session. Like physical therapy, which having undergone it I know hurts, it appears this therapy has some lasting aftereffects as well that aren't all positive. Trying to learn how to help her, better judge what is going on in her head, and continue to deal with occasional meltdowns is a facet of my days that goes beyond dealing with three preschool children.

It means my plate is always full and yes, as people keep telling me, I look tired.

It would be easy to say I have too much to handle, and looking at everything going on in my life, I'd have to agree.

That's why there are days when I have to put some of it aside and not handle it. There are days when I give it to God and don't have time for it any more, although I may have time another day and, without so much as a by-your-leave, take it back.

Thanks to the demands of life, I've found that the easiest thing to set aside and leave in God's hands is my son, because he's already in God's hands and has been for his entire life any way. While I need God's help to get through every day, God has work for me to do as well and that work I cannot pass to others. Ethan doesn't need me any more, either through my physical efforts or my mourning.

No, that doesn't mean I don't still grieve him and feel his absence, or that there won't be days when that grief pushes everything else aside for a while.

My place, however, is living. It's marking off another day and going on.

A Month Ago, My Life Changed

con·do·lence noun \kən-ˈdō-lən(t)s also ˈkän-də-\
: a feeling or expression of sympathy and sadness especially when someone is suffering because of the death of a family member, a friend, etc.

I hate the word condolence, or condolences. No matter how the dictionary defines it, it has to be one of the most meaningless words in the English language to me, perhaps because it is a word that I would never use.

It may be a proper sort of noun, but to me it's proper in that unfeeling, keep my distance, I don't really know you sort of way.

Sympathy isn't a lot better.

If you are sorry for what I'm going through, then simply say it. Don't look for pretty ways to make it less painful. Tell me you're sorry. Although I've received some beautifully written sympathy cards, I've found the meaningful part is the "I'm so sorry" scrawled above the signature.

A month ago, I would never have given a thought to these things. A month ago, I didn't know the rollercoaster of my life had already jumped the tracks and was sailing through the air on its way to a heartbreaking crash. I didn't know that while I thought I was traveling a familiar road, there was actually black ice and everything was going to spin out of control.

I didn't know that about noon the phone would ring and I would learn my son was dead.

Now, a month later there is still an unreality to it all.

Next to Ethan being gone, the thing that disturbs me most is not knowing when. Even if the autopsy gives us answers as to how or why, I'm not expecting an answer to that relatively meaningless question. He's gone and I learned he was gone on Dec. 15. But when did he die? Why didn't my mother's heart feel that he was gone?

As I've slowly regathered the unraveling threads of my life (most of them anyway) over the last two weeks, I'm still troubled by that question. I'll be heading off to one of the activities that was a normal part of my life and I'll think, "The last time I did this, Ethan was alive." That thought is quickly followed by, "The last time I did this, I didn't know Ethan was dead."

That's such a horrible question mark to have hanging over my life. I don't even care as much about why -- why to me is dextromethorphan, whether it was an accidental overdose, chronic overuse that caused organ failure, a seizure from drug use that finally pushed his brain and heart over the edge. As far as I'm concerned, I know what killed him. It was the drug that took a healthy teenager and turned him into an addict with seizures and physical damage and all of the emotional pain that goes along with addiction. Knowing what finally couldn't stand the abuse any longer really doesn't matter to me.

Having Dec. 15, 2013 as his death date and knowing it's not right bothers me beyond all rational thinking.

Then I have to wonder how many other families of addicts wind up carrying this same baggage through their lives. A phone call that tells them a beloved was found dead, not that they died with someone nearby who at least gave a damn, they were found dead. How many people with a network of loving, caring family members push everyone away, don't answer the phone, and isolate themselves for so long that they die alone and are found dead? How many families never even know that they should have gotten that call because the isolation pushes the addict so far that they leave everyone behind and are not only out of touch, but surrounded by strangers who don't even know who to call?

A month ago, I didn't know my life was about to change, but in reality, it already had. Sometime in the days preceding that fateful phone call, Ethan had stretched out in the floor of his apartment, folded his legs like he was apt to do, and simply slipped away with no earthly fanfare or outcry over his going. Because he had spent so long extricating himself, bit by bit, from so much of what went on in our day-to-day lives, we didn't immediately notice he was gone.

But I know it now and I've known it every day for a month. I've felt the hole that the loss of his physical presence has ripped out of my life, the knowledge that this side of heaven I'll never hear his voice, see his smile, or feel his arms around me. I try to cling to that vision of freedom, a happy smile as an angel released him from his pain and addiction, but that's not really enough. I'd like to say, just one more time, but that wouldn't be enough either and that would be a lie. I'm human and still bound by tasks I've yet to complete and a path I have to finish walking, and it may be selfish, but anything short of having him here to walk it with me to the end isn't enough.

So I suppose Dec. 15 will have to do. A month ago today my life changed.

Getting Back to the Business Of Living

Yesterday morning I found myself overwhelmed with life.

I was aggravated, until I realized that was actually a good thing.

I've been overwhelmed with death for so long that dealing with the frustrations of what consumed me just a few short weeks ago was a break, really. It was a sign that perhaps I really am going to survive this. It was the first time in a long time that I've felt annoyed enough with the mundane to feel like I was really living and not at some level forcing myself to go through the motions.

I'm still struck, however, by the image of a storm damaged tree with a large limb broken away and a ragged wound left behind. I know that if the wound isn't properly managed and the tree heals badly or fails to heal, the whole tree can die. Even if I'm living and moving again, I must still tend to the wound of Ethan's death.

Still, yesterday it was good to be simultaneously reading about SPD while trying to decide if it were warm enough to walk dogs, debating times for a doctor's appointment for the baby that I would need to attend, and juggling the rest of my day's activities (including my commitment to this blog).

Darn, I caught myself thinking. If everyone would just leave me alone a few minutes!

But wait.

The telephone messages, the calls, the doctor's appointments, babysitting, dogs and chilly walks were what my life was made of four short weeks ago. This is what life used to feel like.

Instead of getting frustrated, I took a deep breath and realized it felt good.

After figuratively sitting on a shelf for what feels like far longer than four weeks, it felt good to be pulled in a lot of different directions. I was like a toy that the children put away and forget, then rediscover and everyone wants to play with it at once. What would I do first?

Well, first, I wrote a few words because I hate to face an empty computer screen first thing in the morning and I wanted to remember how I felt.

Then I threw on an extra sweatshirt, dug out my gloves and walking shoes and went out to take in the day and make a few dogs really happy. It was, dare I say, cold, until I got about halfway down the road. But I didn't consider turning around, not that the dogs would have let me, but it was good to hear the sound of farm equipment, see the mud on the road and feel both the warmth of the sun and the chill of the air. It was good to feel my body moving again in an old, familiar beat.

After the walk I was rushed to get to Mount Airy and the pediatrician's office where I spent a singularly aggravating hour waiting for an appointment for which we were the designated 15 minutes early. Most of that time I was holding a snotty-nosed baby and keeping an eye on two Kindle-driven preschoolers who were at least not bouncing off the walls and touching everything in the room, unlike the other children. Finally the doctor and a diagnosis of RSV -- oh, joy, oh, bliss. It's been three years since we went a round with that particular nasty virus and I recall we were all sick and E2, who was born during that time, got to spend a week in the hospital. I can only hope we all still harbor some resistance to the bug so we're not quite so ill.

A late lunch, disrupted nap time, dogs and cleaning, a futile attempt at dinner, the roar of a bounce house in the playroom, a dogfight at the back door and one of E1's meltdowns that you have to experience to believe.

Life for most of the day yesterday consumed me and carried me along like the hero of a football game, lifted up on the shoulders of his teammates. I felt swept off my feet and lifted up, enjoying the sensation while it lasted and so tired when it was over that there was no time to feel like the person who has inhabited my body for weeks. I felt relief for a quiet house, instead of dread that I was finally alone.

Yes, I still miss my son and I still had my morning cry, along with random moist-eyed moments through the day. But living isn't all about mourning or grieving. It's about slipping back into old routines that feel a little awkward at first. It's about meeting the needs of each new day as it comes.

It's apparently time for me to get moving again as well and to be quite truthful, it feels good.

Denial Doesn't Work for Me Any More

Some people specialize in denial.

A family member read one of my early posts about Ethan's death and his response was "Why did she have to say he was an addict?" Seriously. He hasn't been encouraged him to read any others and he's not going to brave the computer on his own. To him the subject is probably closed.

Before Ethan died, I avoided using that term in conversation with anyone who didn't already know my son. I talked around the issue in a lot of ways. Ethan had problems. Ethan lacked motivation. Ethan couldn't find a job. Ethan just hadn't figured out what to do with himself. There were a lot of phrases to cover up what was really going on his life because even hinting at addiction made him angry. It hurt him, and I didn't want to cause him more pain, so I avoided it.

Ethan, however, could read through my words and would take offense. When my 30 days of thanksgiving included appreciation for him and the lessons I had learned from his less than perfect life, he was angry that I had told everyone he was an junky. I had not mentioned the exact nature of his problem but he knew what his problem really was and felt that I had shouted it out. We had not spoken for weeks after that incident other than the angry text messages that followed in the evening after reading my post. That post appeared exactly one month before I learned of his death, a fact I had not realized until I went back to hunt it.

The truth cannot hurt Ethan now, but I think it may free me and perhaps others.

I know that only by being truthful about what his life and mine was like will I be able to find any peace with the past. It is only by being honest about what I'm feeling now that I'm able to work through my emotions, try to find a way to move forward and possibly help someone else as well.

I'm honest because I don't know any other way to be right now.

I think for some people real honesty, especially about their own emotions, is as impossible as reaching the moon from their front porch. They may see it as protection, perhaps for themselves and those around them, or maybe as a kind of strength. It is neither, because it denies reality and in avoiding pain causes a different own kind of hurt. The best way to get better, to get through, to heal, even if it is a healing with scars, is to be honest.

Some days the hardest thing in the world is to be honest about what I feel. A random thought will cross my mind with all the emotions it triggers and I wonder how I can share that. Yet my choice is a simple one.

Do I pretend I don't feel that way? Do I lie or just gloss over reality?

If I did that, would my words have any meaning? Would I feel any better? Could I reach anyone who is hurting and be able to help them if I denied my own pain?

Since the phone call four weeks ago today telling me that my son was dead, I've discovered an ocean of pain and I've found that I'm far from the only one who is walking near it, being splashed by its waves, and occasionally struggling to get my head above the water and make my way back to shore. The love and support I've received from this group of fellow sufferers, lost parents who are struggling to move forward with a life that doesn't quite have the meaning it once did, has been tremendous. Struggling with my emotions, I've found I'm often grappling with something they are feeling as well and it's only by being truthful that I help any of us, especially myself.

Many days, knowing we're not alone with the anger, pain, fear and questions helps us to be the person we need to be that day. Just as it may be a random message or phone call that carries me through the day, I hope by being truthful in my grief, I can help someone else through their day as well.

Some people specialize in denial because its easier than facing hard truths about who they are, what they've done, how they feel.

Stripped of our unspoken dreams, our roles as parents unfulfilled, our children missing like the limb of a storm-damaged tree, we tend to lose that veneer of civility that makes us say the right things. Unable to deny one of the hardest truths we'll ever face, I think we find a more honest person less able to tolerate the phoniness of so much of the world. I know that's what I've found huddling in the shell that used to be me.

I no longer take today or tomorrow for granted, realizing at any moment for anyone this could be the last time. I cling harder to those around me and work to nurture the friendships that have survived this storm and those that have been born out of it. I have more compassion for the struggle in everyone's lives and respond with kindness instead of looking the other way. "I love you" is becoming a staple of conversation with not only family, but friends as well.

For some people, facing the truth is something to be avoided at all costs because the truth is painful, the truth touches a core that they don't want disturbed. There have been times when I was part of that group, avoiding the truth about a marriage gone bad, a family problem, a health issue I didn't want to discuss. There have been times when it was easier and didn't feel like a lie to say, "I'm fine."

That's no longer my truth and a lie I can't quite swallow any more. This pain goes so deep, I've found no way to avoid the reality. There may be times when I say nothing, but when I talk about this pain I can only speak the truth.

I Miss My Ability To Be Happy Alone

I lost a lot of intangible things the day my son died, but the thing I miss the most right now is my ability to be happy alone.

I've always enjoyed my solitude. In fact, even when I spent a lot of time around other people, I was seldom part of the circles. As long as I can remember, I've enjoyed being alone -- the silent companionship of dogs and books.

I don't enjoy that any more.

Instead I need people, noise, distraction. Sometimes I'm OK with the television or a good book, but sometimes knowing I have hours when I'll be home alone is terrifying.

I hate Saturdays because the girls don't come and my husband has been working until noon or later. The day stretches in front of me like a long, curving dark tunnel and there is no way to run through it to what I hope is light at the other end. It's me, alone too long with my thoughts and resisting the growing desire to pull down a photo album and give in to depression.

I hate Sundays. The quiet meditation of worship can send me to dark places, no matter how hard I try to follow the sermon. The hymns either fail to move me, or move me too much. The kindness of my church family sometimes helps and sometimes makes me want to flee in tears. Sunday afternoon naps for my husband leave me stranded on an island of loneliness.

A weekday without my grandchildren used to be a rare treat. Now it's a sentence to hours of alone time. Even just the baby, who gives me a long break during her afternoon nap, isn't enough of a distraction, despite the fact that she's more needy than her older sisters.

Weeknights, when the girls leave and the long hours my husband is working send him to bed early, are usually survivable with DVDs and shows that are saved on DVR. Still, sometimes I find myself teetering on a mental ledge and looking for someone to talk me down.

I no longer like being alone if I can avoid it.

When I'm home alone I feel like a small, dark shadow. I feel hunched and huddled against the weight of the world, wrapped around the shattered pieces of myself that I'm trying to hold together. Somehow I feel unsubstantial, as though a strong wind would scatter me like the leaves clinging to a maple in the fall.

I've found that I need other people much more than I did. I've admitted that need and found that I can reach out by phone or Facebook when I'm teetering on the ledge. Although I hate that any of us have to be here, I thank God that we are here together. When someone reaches out to me, I've found that replying to them helps me as well. That means that I feel less reluctant to reach out myself because I know the conversation will probably help heal us both.

There are also times that I recognize this loneliness may have been what Ethan felt so much of the time. Although he isolated himself and pushed us away, or escaped with his drug of choice, I still imagine that the times in between were often as dark and lonely for him as they are now for me. Just as I now miss him, I know there were times he felt that same hole in his being that I feel in mine. I know that reaching out, which he was unwilling to do, can help save me where it did not him.

I know that our ability to be happy alone was one of the biggest things that made us different as far as our personalities. He was unhappy with himself and needed the support of his peers and best friends and it was that craving for acceptance that helped pull him into drugs and addiction. I was the quintessential outsider, happier with my books, dogs and imagination than with any of my friends, and never driven by the need to fit in. I didn't recognize this difference when he was young and don't know that there was anything I could have done about it, other than to handle him differently. Still it haunts me that in losing him, I've become, at least temporarily, more like him.

No longer able to reach him physically, there is a part of me that understands him a little more now than I ever did in the past.

Still, slowly, I've been reassembling the bits of myself that were shattered when I received the call on Dec. 15 that my son was dead.

I'm sleeping a bit longer in the morning and making my way back from the yawning pit of sleep deprivation. My appetite is slowly returning, although I'm usually hard pressed to come up with something I actually want to eat. Resuming my exercise routine makes me feel a little more in control and both mentally and physically stronger.

Finding comfort in my own company still eludes me, but I'm hopeful it will come.

The Love that Broke My Heart is Free Now

I love Ethan more than I have in a long time.

No, that's not quite right, I love him more freely now, without the constraints I'd had to live with for the last seven years.

While death removed him physically from my life, it also removed the bonds of his addiction. Not only was he set free, but I was freed as well.

There's nothing as hard as "tough love," but for years that's the only kind of love I could allow myself to express. To love as freely as my mother's heart desired risked my sanity and safety and that of others I love as well. So although I loved Ethan with every fiber of my being and took every opportunity to tell him so, I could not express it in the way I wanted to for a long time.

I didn't realize how bad it was until I used his birthdate for a password the other day. I realized I had not done that for a long time because there was so much pain in our relationship. Just typing his name or birthdate on a regular basis would have been like cutting myself over and over. Now, because the ongoing emotional anguish of his life is over, even though I'm grieving, I can let that guard down. That string of numbers has a pure meaning now, not one that is as tangled and twisted as an angry black snake.

Not everyone who has dealt with addiction can understand that. Not everyone manages to achieve the level of separation that I had to have to survive. You see, I love Ethan but I didn't think I could survive his addiction. It wasn't just a matter of finding him high and that being hard to live with, it was the fact that his highs could trigger psychosis, hallucinations and violence. I feared my son.

People will tell you that the love we had for one another would have kept me safe, but they would be wrong. His best friend told me that the drug-fueled anger that drove them had no bounds and would not have been stopped by love, because love didn't have a place in those highs. My career in journalism had sent me to the side of a road where a man in handcuffs cried on his front porch because he'd finally snapped and killed his mother; it had taken me to the death chamber at Raleigh where I watched the life drain from another man who had been crazy on drugs when he chased his mom and stepfather into the yard of the home they all shared and gunned them down. It was a fate I wanted to spare us both when I made him move away.

While I missed his laugh, his jokes and his smile, I never knew which Ethan might be living in my house. When I took him places after he lost his license, I never knew which one would suddenly be in my car. I could never predict which innocent conversation might trigger an outburst, when my slowness to respond might provoke his anger.

I hate that I didn't see him more and yet realistically I know that I probably saw him as much as either of us could manage. Because we loved each other so much, our inability to be what the other person wanted hurt as bad as not seeing one another. We broke one another's hearts over and over again.

Yet, I always tried to answer when he called because it was my only chance to hear him. I always hoped I'd get the young man with some goofy story to tell, the one who was so easy to make happy and so full of love and caring. But sometimes I got a young man whose speech was garbled and whose words were full of pain and despair and who I often could not understand no matter how hard I tried. Sometimes I got the angry man that nothing could satisfy and my inability to say yes would end the conversation with cursing and a disconnect.

When we planned a family gathering, other than Christmas which still overrode his addiction to provide delight, he was just as likely to decide at the last minute that the safety and security of his walls was preferable to the love and hurt in the eyes of his family. Just as he longed to be with us, I know that at times we were just more than he could bear. I know his addiction took over and there were times that the only thing that brought him any pleasure was the drugs.

Loving Ethan has been a struggle for a long time. Losing him puts an end to the struggle, but not the love. I didn't love his physical body, I loved the soul that lived within. Now the physical body is gone, so I can no longer see, hear or touch him, but the Ethan I love is still part of me and always will be.

Learning how to live with that love and his loss is going to take a long time -- possibly the rest of my life.

Walking in The Valley of the Shadow of Death

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 23

When I was a preschooler, I learned the 23rd Psalm with my grandfather's encouragement.

I don't know why he picked those verses, but I know as a reward I got to go into the nicest department store in town and pick out a dress. They told me I chose the most expensive one in my size and it still hangs in my closet, waiting to be worn by another generation of little girls.

Whatever his reasons for choosing it, that is certainly the only chapter of the Bible I could quote from memory; some of the few verses I could easily identify.

In the last three weeks, those verses have taken a different memory from what I always assumed they meant. Although they haven't changed in that David spoke of God as the one who protected and cared for him in all situations, my view of one of those situations has changed. In verse 4, I'm not sure if David was writing about his mortality which I had always assumed, or his own journey into grief because, like me, he lost a beloved son. I don't know about the history and how it lines up with his songs, but I know that I now read those verses differently than I did a few weeks ago.

To me, the valley of the shadow of death isn't where I go when I die or when my life is endangered, it's where I've been for weeks now.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

This verse has repeated in my head countless times since the call informing me that Ethan was dead.

My walk has been on a dark path because of the shadow of death. It isn't my death. It isn't sickness and the threat of my own mortality. The shadow of death is grief and it has changed the light through which I view the world. It's a shadow that adds a bittersweet edge to everything I do, a fear that some other next time won't come, that all my tomorrows will feel like today.

And yet, the Psalm reminds me to fear no evil, for God is with me and I will have comfort.

I've never considered myself a "good Christian," for lack of a better way to put it. God is as real to me as the sun that shines on my face on the hottest day of July, but I have lived a far from perfect life even when I knew better. I never thought I was favored by God, even when I managed to come through some of my dumber stunts unscathed. I never felt I had an inside track, because my prayers seemed to fall on unlistening ears as often as anyone else.

But as I've walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I've found out that God really is listening, it has been I who wasn't hearing. Time after time, when I've needed help just to keep going, the phone has rang, a song has played on the radio, or I've seen in my mind the answer to my prayer or felt just how wrong I was to let my feelings of despair consume me. I do not need to be afraid that everything is not under His control or that there won't be something to ease this grief.

I'm certain that skeptics would say I'm delusional and that the God I believe is caring for me doesn't exist or at the very least doesn't care. But coincidence is a term that I don't place a lot of faith in, and my life since losing Ethan has been too full of sudden answers and gifts of understanding. No, not the total understanding of why that I would wish to have, but an understanding that lets me accept the way my life has suddenly changed and keep on living.

I no longer see myself alone in this valley through which so many of us are walking. I see myself with new friends who travel the path of life under the same dark shadow. I see us all reaching out to one another and guided by the shepherding hand of God.

My Non New Year's Resolutions

I didn't plan to make any New Year's resolutions this year, not beyond trying to stay physically and mentally afloat for what I anticipate will be the continuation of the most painful year of my life.

After all, how could I look ahead with any big plans to a year that will be so filled with heart-breaking firsts? Certainly I couldn't think about the items people tend to put on a New Year's resolution list, because most of those things are meaningless to me right now.

Yet, I've found in reading some friends' resolutions, that there are things I expect from the coming year beyond survival. Things that, following God's lead and with His help, I should resolve to do in 2014 and all the years to follow.

1. Exercise my faith and grow my relationship with God.

As hard as it is for me to accept, Ethan's life and death had a purpose that I don't understand. I do not believe that it was coincidence that I had been blogging just long enough to have made it a part of my routine before Ethan's death. Some mornings I do not want to write, but I feel that is part of our purpose and the earthly journey Ethan and I made together. There are a lot of people hurting and if knowing they are not alone brings them the same relief that it does me when someone sends a message back, then I have to keep doing this. Many days it is my faith that God has a plan and this has to have a purpose that keeps me going.

But I don't want anyone to think that just because I seem to work through my emotions in black and white it's easy. It's not. I cry a lot. Sometimes it is just the sadness and sometimes it is anger. Instead of just crying, I have to remind myself to talk to God at these times and ask Him for help and guidance. The answer may be scripture or song or a vision, or it may be the sudden ringing of the telephone when someone has felt that was just the time to call. God answered my prayers and finally gave my little boy peace and healing. It wasn't the way I wanted my prayers answered, but sometimes the answers are unexpected. The answer won't always be so black and white and if I don't take time to listen and wait on God, I may miss the messages and healing He wants me to have.

2. Keep moving and living my life.

It's easy to get stuck in grief. I want to say especially the grief over losing a child, but while it may be more difficult to accept for a parent, there are many kinds of loss that we grieve. Whether it is a pet, a spouse, a parent or a sibling, or even a really close friend, it is easy to allow ourselves to give in to selfish grief. Our lives can become all about our pain and our inability to cope with it. We can shut out the people who still need us, the people who would help us, the people who are grieving with us. We can allow our grief and pain to suck the joy out of our lives and simply stumble through the motions of living. I know there may days when I feel I need to stop and let it consume me for a while, but anyone who God has chose to leave living has a purpose and it is not to sit around and feel sorry for themselves because of someone else's death. Those who are gone are free from pain and suffering and it's our place to live on.

The other side of that coin is to deny our grief. I know there are people who don't allow themselves to grieve because someone has to be the strong one in a family torn apart. Or perhaps grief can be avoided by refusing to accept reality -- especially for people like me who had a sometimes stormy and strained relationship with the one who is gone. While either of these choices may seem outwardly strong and at the very least as far removed from self-pity as possible, they still cut us off from human emotions and a human process that we have to embrace as part of living. They keep us from being emotionally available to loved ones grieving with us and they stop us from helping one another by learning to grieve and live on together.

For me living my life means picking up the threads of old routines that were dropped three weeks ago. It means digging out my knitting needles and starting a new project, stepping on the scale again, going back to my exercise classes, taking the girls back to Awana and gymnastics, planning activities for the future. Some of these things aren't as important as they were, and some have taken on new meaning, but they're all steps in moving forward and living again.

3. Help others.

This used to be simple, like stuffing a few dollars in the Salvation Army kettle, taking groceries to the food pantry in town, or helping to stuff food boxes for the holidays. It's not simple for me any more.

I feel there are too many people grieving the little losses of addiction or the earthly loss of a child and that too often we all feel alone. I promise to be honest and keep reaching out, even when it hurts. I want to help build a network of support where we can bear one another's burdens, love one another, encourage one another to feel not only the pain but the joy of living, and count on God for the final answers and help we need to get through the hard times.

4. Make good memories.

There have been times when I've thought that I wouldn't mind dying, but I want to live long enough to be a memory for my granddaughters. As they say, dying is easy, living is hard.

But the kind of memories I leave, the kind of memories I make every day are important. Although it's tough some days, I want to go to bed each night without a regret in the way I've lived the day God gave me, in the way I've treated the people close to me, or in the way I've reached out to make sure that family and friends who I don't see every day know what they mean to me.

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So there it is, a simple list. It doesn't involve numbers on a scale or in a bank account; it doesn't involve kicking a bad habit or taking up a good one; it doesn't involve getting organized or a better job, or many of the things we typically put on our list of resolutions.

Even more importantly, it's not a list that will ever be checked off as accomplished. These are resolutions not just for 2014, but for the rest of the life God has given me live. It's not the life I expected or wanted a few short weeks ago, but it's the one I've been given. While it may pass as a vapor, it's my reality now and I intend to make the most of it.

I Didn't Tell a Friend -- Maybe Because She Wasn't

The other day in Walmart, I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in years.

That could be the beginning of a lot of stories. It is the beginning of a lot of traffic jams and sometimes aggravation for Walmart shoppers, but at the same time virtually everyone's path crosses at Walmart at some point. I once ran into the guy I had a crush on in the 11th grade at Walmart, which wouldn't be such a huge shock if he didn't actually live in Tennessee.

The friend I ran into on what was virtually my first time away from home since Ethan's death more than two weeks ago was carrying a toddler on her hip and asked if I'd seen her husband, which I hadn't. I was pushing a cart loaded with the youngest granddaughter while the older two were burning off some pent up energy by running up and down an aisle. Years ago, one of her sons and Ethan had spent time together at church and our homes. She drove the school bus that carried him to elementary school. We were members of the same church, although I haven't seen her there recently.

Do you want to know what we talked about? Would you care to guess?

We talked about babies. Turns out the baby on her hip wasn't her newest grandchild, but a little boy she's adopting. She wanted an update on my granddaughters. I held her little boy so she could go to the restroom (her reason for looking so desperately for her husband).

Neither of us mentioned Ethan.

I don't know why.

There is a very real chance that she didn't know, although it seemed that the news spread fast. We're not even Facebook friends any more, and I don't know that she keeps in touch with her former church family or reads the newspaper to see his obituary. I'll have to admit, if something had happened to one of her children, I don't guess I would have known.

But she knew my little boy from the time he was seven and the bus didn't come on the first day of school, because the boy who lived here before us was also named Ethan, and she knew he'd moved. She saw him every school day and at church on Sunday. He sometimes went home with her to play Nintendo with her sons. We sang together in the choir. When our children were older, we sat together and caught up on where they were and what they were doing.

Yet she never asked about him, and that omission tells me she knew, but just avoided the conversation. She never even asked how how I was, firmly keeping the door closed on that conversation. She may have been sorry that she bumped into me, and had it not been for the toddler and her need, she might have took a turn down an aisle before I spotted her.

I get that. Really I do. People think they'll upset you by asking. Talking about it will make me cry, whether to a friend or a total stranger, like the nice lady from Northern Hospital calling about the payment I forgot to send the week Ethan died. But not talking about it doesn't make the pain go away.

While I'm willing to give her a pass because I understand if she was reluctant, I'm still struggling to understand why I didn't tell her.

It's not that I'm unwilling to talk about it, or even that I don't want to examine my pain. I've discovered that I'm perfectly good at baring my soul when it comes to this. I've discovered that it helps me deal with and work through it. I've discovered that it's a whole lot better than pushing it down inside where it would simmer and leave me unable to help not only myself, but anyone else.

Her reluctance, or more accurately avoidance, I understand at some level. You don't want to poke at another person's pain.

Accepting my own complicity in pretending that my life is OK, however, is something new for me to deal with. Realizing that I'm not going to bring it up, even when it should be perfectly acceptable to do so, is something I'm still processing.

Yet, I know it's a common reaction. Out of my friends and acquaintances who I've known for years have lost children, there has only been one who would honestly share their pain and I know that honesty sometimes has people turning away. Honesty has a price that we may be hesitant to pay.

I think we also come to realize rather quickly, that some people we once considered friends aren't really. They shy from our pain and are eager to accept our lies when they're forced to ask how we're doing. It's amazing how quickly we can sense the sincerity in a question, and surprising who will turn out to be our true friends -- not necessarily the people we might have expected, but not only the people who understand our grief either.

Our lies and silence when talking with people who don't fit the bill for true friends are also an act of kindness and self preservation on our parts. I feel like I'm carrying around a big bucket of pain, and that I don't want to splash it on someone nearby who isn't prepared to deal with it. At the same time, although my tears are healing and never in short supply, I'm not sharing them with just anyone. Only people that I feel really care will get to see me cry.

Sleep Is My Elusive Friend

I chase sleep like my Labrador retriever chases deer in the fall.

Sometimes he is relentless in his pursuit, staying gone for hours and coming home with a happy, panting face. Other times he knows it's no use, they're already too far away and instead of bothering, he sits at the end of my driveway and howls mournfully. Sometimes I think the deer toy with him and he's not in the mood so instead he just stands and barks, looking into the woods.

He never actually catches a deer, however, so in that regard we are still different. He did wind up with a deer in the yard one day this week, through careful plotting and cooperation with several other dogs and perhaps coyotes, who stole two hunters' prizes from where they been hung during the night. Although he was fat and happy after the success, he didn't get to keep it.

While sometimes I pursue sleep and sometimes I sit and bemoan its escape, I do manage to catch my own sleep. But like Rebel, whatever means I use to catch it, I never get to keep it as long as I would like.

I have what I consider a healthy fear of lying in bed and not sleeping. My often tenuous grip on anything resembling emotional stability would be completely undone by a sleepless night, or even an hour or so of tossing and turning in a quiet bedroom. The past cannot be changed and no amount of mentally rearranging reality is going to bring my son back or give me a measure of peace. I know that it would, in fact, do the exact opposite and that once it began just a few tosses and turns might cast me loose without a rudder on a dark and stormy sea.

So I pursue sleep with a careful plan that most nights gets me into bed before midnight and quickly to sleep.

It hinges on not going to bed until I'm positively falling asleep on the couch, sometimes watching a recorded television program (so I can pick up later where I left off) and other times fumbling through a few games of Words With Friends until my eyes begin to slip shut. No reading, because reading never makes me sleepy, although the Kindle would allow me to read with lights off.

That transition to la la land is eased most nights with a glass of wine. Or on bad evenings, a couple of glasses. I realize I'm using a chemical crutch, but at the same time is it any worse than seeing my doctor for a sleep aid? I think not. Plus red wine has health benefits and I do use a 5-ounce glass.

Before enjoying my sedative, I take care of the whole bedtime routine carefully. I wash my face and change into my pajammas. I avoid Facebook and stay away from my blog because they can be emotional triggers. I cut off all lights at 10 p.m. to set the mood. I do everything but brush my teeth, which I do in a dark room, in an effort to avoid disrupting my slide into oblivion.

Some nights, I'm done before 11. Other nights I'm easing up on 12 before my eyelids are heavy enough to feel safe setting my mind free. But every night, despite my fear, I've been able to sleep.

Mornings are the hard time because I have no control over when my eyes will flutter open to still dark windows, a clock telling me the hour is far too early to be forced to begin my day.

While I'm used to getting up before 7, there have been many days in the last two weeks that I'm up before 6 and a few really desperate mornings when my internal alarm was triggered before 5. There's already coffee, (my husband has to be at work by 5) and as soon as I move most mornings my canine companions are ready to hit the back yard and see if they can scare up a squirrel or at least rattle the cage (literally) of my irritable rabbit.

I figure I'm losing a night's sleep every five to seven days and don't see any hope of gaining ground.

Because just as I chase sleep at night, I run from it during the day. Even before my sleep pattern became so disrupted, a doze on the sofa could easily spawn a sleepless night, even if my nap was a short one. I think I've managed one midafternoon snooze, and while it was desperately needed it still caused a delay at bedtime.

Hence, the coffee consumption that begins at whatever time I stumble out of bed doesn't end most days until dinner and sometimes later. I know I'm drinking too much coffee, but I haven't been able to find any way around it. That morning half-pot may be followed by a pre-lunch cup of joe if the morning has been really long. When nap time comes for the girls, I need coffee to avoid joining them, especially since only two of three usually sleep (even if I could nap without losing sleep, that wouldn't be a good option). Many afternoons I need at least one more to keep me upright until they head home shortly after 8 p.m.

Pretty soon after that it's time to decelerate, so I feel like I'm probably not getting really good gas mileage by always being on the gas or the brakes.

Still, despite the brevity of some nights, I have not had the sleepless nights I so fear. Sleep, my friend, always settles in at some point to keep me company for a few hours. While I still long for a morning sleeping in, an ease in the pervasive exhaustion that I carry like a weight across my head and shoulders, I'm relieved that sleep has not deserted me.

Sleep, although elusive, has not decided to abandon me to my grief, but each night gives me a few hours of total peace where not even dreams come to torment me. For that I have to be thankful.