Loss

I've spent hundreds of hours since losing Max trying to figure out how I am going to live with this for the rest of my life.  I've exhausted myself with reading and meditating and talking and trying to come up with a plan that could ever make me feel worthy of continuing to live in a world without my son.

Well meaning people have given me many suggestions, many of these I have come up with myself: 
Have more children!
Move - go someplace new and explore!
Find the meaning in the loss and then make a difference in the world!
Remember the love that you shared with Max and then seek opportunities to invite love like that back into your life!

These suggestions all sort of make sense when I am the focus of the loss.  But, I am not the focus of the loss - Max is.  He is the one who really lost.  He lost his life.  What I am having trouble living with is that he is not living.  It nearly kills me every minute of every day that my heart feels so empty without him - but what kills me even more is how selfish that feels.  What is painful is not just that I lost Max from my life - it is that Max lost his life.  And frankly, I'm not sure how this point keeps getting missed.  The empty feeling I have because Max is dead is not just about me not getting to see my baby grow up - it's about his not getting to grow up. That is the real loss.  How is that not plain as day?  

You see - no matter how many children I have, or how many exotic places I travel to or live, or how much money I raise for charity or how much more love I invite into my life - Maxie will never have these things and THAT is what I cannot reconcile.

I have already found things in my life to be happy about - I already enjoy Mo, Ted, Jake and Layla, traveling, my work, my friends.......But living with the shocking truth that my son will never have these things, that he lived and experienced so very little - I just don't know how to do that. He is what is most important!  He is what is most lost!  HIM and not ME!

5 comments

Anonymous said...

After losing my precious daughter, I find life is meaningless and I don't think life is beautiful anymore. It's not just because I lost my daughter, I have seen so many other people are struggling too. Almost everyone has sth to struggle with, some are small and some are big and huge struggles. So I have changed my view of life or world, which made me even think not living is ok too. I know it's a depressing thought, but sometimes I find some comfort by thinking this way.

Tamar said...

I hear you, Abby. I am sad for Maxie and I am sad for you. It makes absolutely no sense and is so terribly unfair. I'm sending you love. xoxo

Unknown said...

This is the one thing, the glaring thing, I miss about being Mormon. This absolute knowledge that our loves are not lost, not suffering, not really gone. They are happy, and just waiting for us. I desperately want that assurance and peace for the ones I lost. -kate

GrahamForeverInMyHeart said...

You are so right. When people say things like - your son will always be with you...I feel like saying, that is not where he'd want to be. He'd want to be somewhere far away having adventures in his own life, not hanging around his mother. It is exactly the fact that my son will never have the chance to fulfill or even reach for his dreams that is so painful. Max lost everything. It's the greatest loss.

Rose said...

This is so true and heartbreaking Abby. Sending love.