The Code: how I talk about hard things, without really talking about them.

I have a sort of “code” that I use, in speaking about hard things, and this is part of the complex answer to the question, “How do you do it? How are you surviving this?”

Here is part of my code:

“Had a moment” …As in, “I was going through a box of Michael’s things, and came across the Christmas stocking that I made for him.” (part of a set of four, one for each kid, and probably the most beautiful things I have ever sewn) “Finding that, so unexpectedly…yeah, I had a moment.” 

               

 -had a moment = code for: tears streaming down my face, choked by deep, wrenching sobs

Interesting…when I cry for my lost son, it’s unlike any crying I’ve ever done before. Not the depth of it- I have sobbed deep sobs over other painful things. I think that when I cry over him, I sound sort of lost and bewildered and…hurt. It is the sound of deeply wounded disbelief, coming from the place in my mama’s heart that still can’t really understand how this can possibly be true.

“Hazardous”- also- “Risky” -also- “Fraught with peril” …As in, “Going through papers can be hazardous.“ Or “Picking up the mail can be fraught with peril.”

-any of those terms = unexpectedly running across anything to do with Michael.

It is like being gut-punched. It is shocking, and especially painful, because I was not expecting it, not prepared, my guard was down. 

Like…picking up the mail and coming across anything with his name on it; especially a bill from that one company that just won’t stop.

Like…going through cards and letters and coming across a print of the last family photo we took together, taking one look at the handsome, smiling face of our son who is now dead, and dissolving in teary, shaking sobs. (part of why I didn't sleep well last night)

Like...looking over my to-do list and being reminded that I still need to send a death certificate and copy of the obituary to that one life-insurance company, and that the attorney still needs my notes on what bills I’ve paid from Michael’s account, and...

Hazardous. Risky. Fraught with peril.

I ran into a man we know at the post office once, just after I had picked up the mail. He asked how I was doing...so I told him the truth. I told him that I'd just been sucker-punched by the mail, with envelope after envelope addressed to Michael. It was obvious that I was in such pain. He was very kind, and we had an honest conversation about deep loss, but still, seeing my actual raw naked pain is hard on people. 

I spoke in an earlier post about using “Cousin George” as code when our hearts are too raw to speak Michael’s name. That has been another very helpful tool.

[The Cousin George Construct- posted in October of 2018, on this blog.]

All of these are coping mechanisms that help to keep me sane. All of them are needed, because my skin is fragile and the pain of this loss is a raging inferno.

If I spoke of these painful things in a serious way, I would come undone. I would “have a moment.” 

Survival, for me, for us, often looks like stepping very gently over the surface and not looking too closely at the terrible reality beneath our feet. Because the reality is that we are shattered in the deepest way…and yet we have to keep functioning and doing life.

Things we have understood from the earliest days of our shocking loss:

- Life grabs you by the face and drags you forward

Life just does not stop. People still have to eat and think and have clothes to wear and do mundane things, and make petty decisions, and make immense, impossible decisions…despite the fact that the world has fallen to pieces. Life does not stop and politely wait until you’re ready for it to start again. It grabs you by the face and forces you to keep doing basic daily things and making decisions and just…living.

- You have to, so you do.

               

 I actually thought of having a t-shirt made, with this on it. So many people have said variations of “I don’t know how you’re surviving this,” and the only real answers are, “Jesus” and “you just have to, so you do.” 

It reminds me of those years of bleary, staggering exhaustion when the kids were little, and maybe I’d had two hours of sleep because someone was puking all over their bed in the middle of the night, but the reality was that there were four little people who still needed feeding and care, and I was the grown-up on duty, so I had to… so I did. 

It’s a very similar feeling now, of being absolutely beyond any hope of being able to handle things, and yet, somehow life goes on and things have to be handled, and we are the people who have to handle them, so, somehow, by the grace of God, we do.