Reality

Today was an "I can't get out of bed" day

when the tears come unbidden 

before my head leaves the pillow

and the only thought rolling around in my head

is that I wish my heart would just...STOP.

Stop hurting.

Stop wishing.

Stop breaking.

Stop loving.

Stop living.

Stop beating.

I don't want to live here without you

so it's a fitting punishment

for failing so greatly at the only job

you ever gave me - 

MOTHER.

Can this be over yet?

I do not know what this is

but it isn't life

it isn't living

it isn't happy

Tomorrow will be the same

another day where I will wish with every fiber of my being

that none of this was real.

Yesterday alone in my car I screamed,

"I'm ready to leave the simulation now!"

"Please! Please, I'm done with this,

no more, it hurts too much, all it ever does is HURT!"

MAKE

IT

STOP

But this is reality. Of course it is. Of course. I know. 

The only reason I know it's real is because I can't wake up...

Commencement

 I remember as a teenager I was so confused about why graduation was called "Commencement" since it was the celebration of the end of high school or college, not the beginning. And then someone, I wish I could remember who, told me it was called Commencement because it was the START of a whole new adventure in life, and it made sense, this beautiful celebration of a new beginning, a new chapter as the last one left so many things unsaid and undone.

How do you plan a commencement for a box of ashes? An 18th birthday for a chasm of despair? There are no more chapters in his book, and I am left to write the Epilogue. 

I think of golden tassels with '24 dangling from rear view mirrors, windows rolled down as the tassel tangles and blows in the wind, buddies laughing from the back and passenger seats, a filthy rap song blasting on the radio. 

I'd give all the money I ever could have made to hold you just one. more. time.

Your friends help pick the song to play for your part of the Graduation slideshow. I am grateful for their help, even as my stomach knots in despair thinking of the empty chair for you sitting on the field. 

My life is nothing but empty chairs these days. No one wants a seat at this table.

Nothing in my brain makes sense anymore, it's just disjointed thoughts and memories of you cascading and pushing me into the next moment without you, and then the next, and then the next. You are nowhere and everywhere in this prison of a house, and I only let myself smell your special death anniversary candle once a week, on Wednesdays at 7:30pm, but I tell you that I'm sorry every other minute of the week.

I hate myself, if you want to know the truth. Some days I think if I just could have been a better mother, if I could have had a better mother and father to show me...but no, no, this is on me, it's not their fault. They were victims of trauma-filled childhoods too, and here I was so certain that if anyone could break the cycle it was me. 

But all the men in my family are gone, and I am the common denominator. Father, Son, Brother--souls lost to addiction and mental illness. On days when I feel very evil I am grateful that 2 were not able to procreate. 

Some cycles require death to end them. But I never meant for you to be collateral damage. I never meant for me to be it either. 

Ava came to me last night a little tearful and I asked if she was ok. "I was just driving home in the dark alone and I guess it just hit me that he is really never coming back. I am never going to see my brother, ever again. And it just hurts so much sometimes." She was never meant to be an only child. 

You would have turned 18 in 12 days, but instead you will always be 15. No birthday. No Commencement. No celebrations of great accomplishments and exciting future plans. No college. No life.

Wherever you are, I hope that your happiness is commencing. I love you, and I'm sorry I wasn't a good enough mom for you. 

Still lost

I lost you

like I lose my phone

and my keys

and my earbuds

a million times a day

but it only took one time

to lose you forever

and now I lose my breath

and my tears

and my mind

a million times a day

over losing you

sometimes I wonder

what there is left in this 

world to lose without you in it

 

Lost

On my worst days without you
I like to imagine the Multiverse,
another universe just a breath away
where you did not kill yourself that night
and we reconciled like countless fights before,
said our sorrys and I love yous and life went on.

A universe where you stayed,
what a beautiful place that must be. 

I can imagine you, more man than boy,
college acceptances and big decisions
and a whole LIFE laid out before you
with friends and first loves and jobs and school,
highs and lows and everything in between.

L
  I
    F
      E
         lost....when you ended your life, you took mine with you.

I wonder what your mom in the Multiverse is like now,
with an almost-18-year-old man-child
on the precipice of EVERYTHING that comes next...
What must it be like for her to look forward to the future?
All I can do in this universe is miss you and hate myself.

How could I have ever known there would be no sorrys,
no I love yous, no I forgive yous, no hugs? 
I'll never walk away from another fight again,
not ever. It is my biggest regret, leaving that room.

If your mom in the Multiverse gets to hug you,
she is the luckiest person in the world. 
Here on Earth, I spend another day crying and missing you,
and wishing none of this was real. 

Is this really real? 2+ years later and I still ask every day, hoping to wake up.

Missing You (the only thing that stays the same)

Missing you is really the only thing that stays the same anymore. 

I miss making you chocolate Valentine's hearts on a plate or taking you for Valentine's donuts. You LOVED donuts so much.

I miss when you used to come home from school and always came to check on me first and see how my day was going. You always asked me how work was going, and it was my favorite part of the day. 

I miss hearing you playing games in the basement with your buddies. Our house is so quiet without you. When Harrison was here last weekend my brain heard him laughing and thought it was you and my heart skipped a beat before my brain caught up.  

I miss everything...even the bad days, even the worrying, even the stress and anxiety of having a chronically ill child dealing with mental health.

I miss you. Nothing is the same, except that.

Never Normal

If you had told me 2 years ago that 25 months into losing my son to suicide I would still feel this lost, still feel this much agony, that it would still hurt this much....I don't think I would have believed you. I'm resilient--there's nothing in this life that I haven't gotten through, and I have had a fairly difficult life. But this? I can't get through this. There is no through, there is only here in the present, where he does not and will never again exist.

People ask me often if things have gotten "easier" with time and the truth is no, everything about life has gotten infinitely harder since the day Aiden left this world. I wouldn't dare to call what I am doing right now living. Surviving? Barely. But living? I don't know how to do that anymore. Everything feels pointless and empty. Things that used to bring me joy feel like a chore. I know this is functional depression at its worst, and sometimes the thought of existing like this for decades more...it is agonizing. I don't want to be here, but I cannot leave. The paradox of having a child that is a box of ashes. There are only two things in this world I want more than anything else: to go back to 12/22/21 and change the outcome of that night; and to be ashes in a box myself.

"I don't think we talk enough about how undone we become in the valley of grief. Or how enormously we must stretch just to fit ourselves into some kind of a new normal and dare to call it life again."

October is Lonely without You...

Dear Aiden,

I'm in disbelief that it's October 10th already. Shocked that the world keeps spinning and the sun keeps rising and I am still here. Without you. Remember a few years ago when Drew sang the O-O-O-October song? We have been singing it all month. He has turned into the smartest and funniest kid, I know you would be proud of him. And Abby is on the swim team this year and doing so amazing! How I wish you were here to see them growing up...it's happening ever so slowly but then all at once. Drew will be 9 in a few weeks, and it's hard to believe he had only just turned 7 when you left us. The Mains are going to Disney this week, they leave tomorrow, and staying at the Wilderness Lodge just like we did. And then they are getting a puppy! You are missing so much, I hate it. 

I always have this idea what I am going to start blogging and poetry will flow out of me, words like gifts flying off the keyboard keys faster than I even realize. But of course that's never how it happens. I think of things to write in the shower or in the car or making my coffee and then they vanish, as fast as they came, into the vast chasm of my mind where lately nothing is rememberable, is that even a word? Your dad and I keep saying we wonder if this is what dementia feels like, where you know you should remember something specific but you just don't because the word isn't there in your brain or on the tip of your tongue, it's nowhere in fact. Just like you. 

Today is World Mental Health Day. The irony. Yesterday was my and your dad's 18 year wedding anniversary. 18 years...I was supposed to be 43 with a 17 year old and a 15 year old. Not one dead 15 year old and one alive 15 year old. No no no, it was never supposed to be like THIS. This. This fucking sucks, quite frankly. Your sister got her braces off yesterday and all I could remember was not getting a braces off picture of you because I didn't go with you, your dad did, and you probably wouldn't have let me take one anyway. But I don't have that picture, I don't have that memory, and sometimes I worry that the memories I do have are starting to slip away like grains of sand through my fingers. I try to remember the sound of your voice and it's lost in the wind. If I had to guess how many hours I spend thinking about you...well, it's all the ones where I am awake, which is most of them. 

Missing you never gets easier. 657 days since I have heard your voice, seen your face. I am so so so sorry. I am sorry every second of every minute of every day since Dec. 22, 2021. I never ever should have left you in that room alone. I will never forgive myself for that, not ever.