Day One
You left us on June 30th, 2021 at 1:25am. They told me I could hold you one last time so I picked you up from the ICU bed and put my hand over your still beating heart so I could feel it one last time. I didn’t realize then, but this would end my ability to feel whole.
As we drove home the next day, I was numb and confused. Why were there cars on the road? The world ended last night. There should be no activity anywhere.
I’ve lost people in my life that I’ve been close to before. But it’s been the normal order of things. My mother, my grandfather, my grandmother. But when age increases and illness comes calling, the logic of nature takes control and while sad and painful, it still fits into our expectations. Losing you doesn’t make sense. It feels abhorrent.
The next days will be filled with your mother and I moving from our bed to the living room. Staying awake until 2-3am until our bodies just pulled us into sleep. Getting up anywhere from 9-11am. And “getting up” would more often than not mean moving to the living room for an hour or so and then back to bed to lay there and stare and cry. The grief comes hard and frequently in these days and weeks. The tears and the pain are at a level that I can’t put into words. The term “soul crushing” always seemed dramatic to me before you passed. Now I get it. That is exactly how this feels. It’s like being put into a compactor and being squeezed to death. When the grief wave overtakes me, it starts internally and makes my body shake and try for a fetal position. Sobs rack my lungs and I can’t move. I’m shuddering and shaking and the tears just come and come. If I’m sitting I will rock back and forth in an effort to assuage some of the hurt. It doesn’t work. If I’m laying, I writhe in pain. As if I’m in the throws of withdrawal from some narcotic.
After the first day I noticed my throat was dry and while I felt the sensation of crying, I couldn’t. Turned out I wasn’t drinking enough water. Well, I wasn’t really drinking any water at all, really. Or eating. 15 pounds were gone in two weeks. Family came with casseroles which sat in our fridge. We ate some of them, but it was forced. We knew we were supposed to eat because of the physical need, but emotions seemed to override it. Nothing tasted good, nothing sounded good. Nothing was good. Everything was bad.
As far as I can tell, the rest of my time on this planet will be a muted version of this same process.
As a parent you have many jobs, but the single most important is to keep your children safe. I failed you Benjamin. My main duty and promise to you… I failed. And it will haunt and fill the rest of my days.