This is an exclusive club that no one wants to join, ever. Through out my years (before Kai) I have known or come across mothers that have lost a child, even my own relatives. I remember thinking how sad it was and how sorry I felt for them. But now I understand on a different level. It is a rip your heart out, throw it on the ground, grief all the way from your toes, emotional dive!! You should be dehydrated because of the amount of tears you cry there shouldn’t be any moisture left in your body. You quit functioning because how can life even think about going on without this person in it every single day. What do I do from here? Where do I go from here? What happens now? But yet you don’t want the pain to ever go away because that means you are healing, you are moving on, you are getting used to that child not being around, the new normal is happening.
It’s unbelievable to think of how many in my own family have lost a child. My maternal grandma buried her oldest son due to a sudden hear attack, my aunt buried her oldest son due to tragic logging accident, my uncle buried his youngest daughter due to cancer before she was 30, my cousin lost his 18 year old daughter due to a tragic car accident, these are all relatives from my mamas side of the family, crazy. So my mama has been there through her oldest brother, oldest nephew, two nieces, and don’t forget her grandson, Kai. Then there is my mother and father-in-law….my hubby lost his sister 31 years ago in a tragic plane crash that was avoidable and should never have happened. Here, now, when I think about hubby’s sister she was gone only 5 years when I met him. That is right now how long Kai has been gone and I know how I feel after 5 years without Kai, so now I know how still fresh his family’s feeling were at losing their child. I feel like I was kinda insensitive to that back then, not understanding the volume of emotions a loss like this can have, but heck, it was beyond my understanding of that kind of loss. Now I understand, now I understand completely.
The day Kai was born was a super amazing day for all of us especially my in-laws. Because on that day it was not only mothers day, it was what would have been hubby’s sisters 25th birthday. Yup my little boy was born on his aunts birthday, how poetic. We would always say she was is guardian angel and he had to have had her wings completely worn out and exhausted. He was a challenge to keep safe for sure.
The most memorable time for me coming across a fellow member of the Grieving Mothers Club was when hubby and I were traveling with our RV to visit my brother in Colorado. Kai had only ben gone a year and we decided to do a little trip together and see some sights on the way, Mount Rushmore, and such. Hubby even let me stop by some wineries and do wine tasting on the way! He hates wine, but loves me, so you know. At the last winery we stopped in a lady that worked there asked about the memorial tattoo I have on my forearm. I let her read it and told her it was for my son I lost the year before. She showed me her ankle memorial tattoo for her son that died two years prior, and it was also suicide that took her son. Hubby had to run out to the rig real quick and comes back into the winery to see his wife and some strange lady hugging with tears. That’s the Grieving Mothers Club.
It is surreal to know exactly, how people feel that have lost a child. It doesn’t matter how old their child was either. I have had several clients that were in their 70’s and 80’s that had to bury a child in their 50’s and 60’s and the pain is just as real for them. It is against all parental rules to bury a child, they were meant to be the ones to bury us, those are supposed o be the rules damnit.
I wish every day that there never has to be a new member of the Grieving Mothers Club. But since I sadly know there will be, I will be here for any of you with open arms and I will cry with you as I know your pain all to well. Don’t be afraid, the new normal will happen even if you don’t want it to.