Almost every night before bed, we do “high, low, buffalo” with our older kids. The high is the best part of your day, low is the worst, and buffalo is something bizarre or funny you want to share about your day. Recently, we were talking about our daily low which led to a conversation about the worst day we’ve ever had. Nick claimed the day he stuck a lead fishing weight up his nose and had to go to the hospital to get it flushed out as his worst day ever.
Nick turned seven yesterday (no, I can’t believe it) and I think we are doing okay if that’s the worst day of his life so far. After all, it ended with a smile and giant blue slushie. I’ve been having a really hard time with this birthday and I know exactly why; my sister was seven when our older brother died in a pedestrian/auto accident. I’m sure she would have labeled *that* day as her worst day ever. Now she has a baby of her own, and I have three, one who is now seven. Someday, they will all be seven and then eleven (which is how old I was when my brother died). It is impossible for me to think about my children navigating a sibling loss at any age, but especially as I see everything my typical seven-year-old is doing. I really can’t believe my sister survived such a traumatic event at seven (I’m not comparing our losses, I know I will feel the same way when I have an 11-year-old). How would any seven-year-old be able to navigate learning how to read, solve math problems, ride a bike, throw a football, make new friends, follow societal rules/expectations all while managing the aftermath of a sibling death? Sibling death includes loss of parents and life as you know it. Developmentally/socially/emotionally losing a sibling during adolescence put us at such a disadvantage. If it wasn’t for a rock-solid support system and our faith, I don’t think my sister and I would be where we are today, and for that, I am thankful. For me, losing a sibling during adolescence forced me to develop survival skills I don’t know I would have otherwise. I think I pushed the enormity of my grief so far away just so I could survive. These survival skills were often labeled as “mature,” independent, achievement-oriented, and driven. Subconsciously, I think I was making things as easy as I could on my parents. After all, they deserved a “really good kid” after losing their only son. Needless to say, I’ve been in therapy trying to process the most intense grief I’ve ever experienced since my brother died in 2002. I don’t need the same set of survival skills I did when I was 11. I’m learning how to have fun, for the sake of having fun, how to slow down and do less, and accept “good enough” over perfectionism. I chuckle thinking about 2015 Haley sitting in therapy sharing I was “grieving that I wasn’t grieving anymore.” I truly thought I was through the darkest days of grief and healing would be linear from there. A few weeks ago, I was recalling a memory with my therapist and with tears slipping out of her eyes, she looked at me and said, “Haley, this time I think you’re grieving for that 11-year-old little girl.” That may have been the most profound thing said to me in therapy, ever (and I’ve been in a lot of therapy). I lost it. Because she’s right and I've never gotten to do that before. Author Jamie Wright writes this about her son who died by suicide four years ago: “Four years, baby boy. How is this even real? Your absence has become your presence. An enormous hole in the middle of every room. To talk about you, to share you, to say your name…Jamison…is to creep up and peer over the edge. To laugh about something you said or did is to dance along the rim on my tiptoes. To talk to you, like this, is to sit down and dangle my bare feet over the rift that you created between Heaven and Earth. It’s glorious and terrifying. Early on, I learned how dangerous this hole can be. I know that if I get too close, if I go too far, I will tumble in, I will shatter into a million pieces and fall apart. I know how hard it is to pull myself back together and claw my out. But I also know you’re there, in the Grand Canyon of my grief. So I will go there, too. This hole cannot be filled. No one would even try. No the real temptation is to build a fence around it, a sturdy wall to keep us safe from the pain of losing you and to prevent us from seeing the glaringly empty space where you are supposed to be. But wall or no wall, the place you’re missing from is still there. It always will be. It’s been there for four years. Four fucking years. With this thing there, because you’re *not*. Today, I’ll get as close to you as I know how to be without, like, dying. I’m learning how to get closer still, how to find you and see you in all the places that you are not. I’m learning to be awed by the expanse rather than afraid of it. Instead of a wall, I choose to live with the hole-the ever-present absence of *you*. Jamison. I miss you. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m right here. As close as can be.” I can’t explain it with my own words any better than that. So I’ll reflect on hers. Maybe for the first time, I’ve allowed the sturdy wall, the one that helped me survive and kept me safe from the pain of losing my brother, to fall. I’ve started to explore the Grand Canyon of my own grief. Maybe I’ve gotten too close and tumbled right in. But sometimes, I’d rather be here…shattered into a million pieces, because that’s where my brother is. It’s glorious and terrifying as I start to remember what it was like to have an older brother. I’m recalling memories I’ve forgotten about for two decades. Grieving for the 11-year-old Haley is terrifying and vulnerable. This may sound ridiculous to someone who hasn’t experienced it, but it makes me feel like a little girl again. Because I was one the day my brother died, the day I played my flute at his memorial service, the day I watched his casket be lowered into the ground, and then all the days after that I went out into the world as "the girl who's brother died." Those don't really sound like little girl things. One day I was one and the next day I wasn't. It would be easier to keep building the wall and cling to the same survival skills that have served me well. At the end of the day, I would have something to look instead of all the empty spaces of where Nick is supposed to be. and all the childhood I lost. But, I will keep learning how to get as close as I can. Not only for myself but also for my husband, kids, and everyone else who didn’t have the chance to know Nick, to get to know how through my memories. For my family too, because we all deserve to remember what a special, beautiful, bright, and loving son, brother, and friend we had in Nick. Nick, I miss you. I love you. I’m right here, as close as I can be.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Author
Hi! I'm Haley. Archives
May 2019
Categories |