Beyond Tears: Living After Losing a Child (16 page)

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Authors: Ellen Mitchell

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Phyllis: “It used to be that I thought of Andrea and there were tears, now I think of her and I smile, I radiate.”
Lorenza: “And I don’t want someone to say, ‘Oh, that pathetic mother, all she talks about is her son.’ It’s not even so much what someone else will think of me, but what I think of myself. If I have several down days, I need to pick myself up. Whether it’s by going for a nice walk or being with an understanding friend, I need to keep a balance in my life by finding something that makes me go on. Sometimes I go to church. It’s not so much for the religion, so much as it is that it grounds me and makes me look at what’s important in life and where I want to go in my life.”
But none of us was able to think in such rational terms early on. As we’ve said before, the time when grief begins to lessen it’s hold on us cannot be rushed, and it follows no timetable. For some, it is sooner rather than later. There is no way of telling when it will begin to lift, but
begin it will. At some point, we were able to stop thinking of our child’s death all day, every day.
Barbara E.: “I remember one morning about nine months after Brian died when I woke up and he was not the first thing I thought about. I looked out the window to see what the weather was like, and then I was so shocked that Brian was not my first thought. I caught myself and asked myself, ‘What do you care about the weather?’”
Phyllis: “That happened to me at about nine months as well.”
Maddy: “And it’s not the same with husbands and wives. Sometimes when I might not be thinking of Neill, Cliff remembers, as if by radar. We bought some furniture about three years after Neill died. I was relieved as we left the store; I wasn’t even thinking about Neill. But as soon as we got into the car, Cliff started to cry. He was upset that Neill would never see the new furniture, never sit on the new couch. It’s as if when I’m off of it, Cliff is on it.”
Barbara G. : “Our husbands have grown, too. Last year, Bruce was playing golf and he got a hole in one. He was ecstatic, but then he got teary-eyed because he couldn’t tell Howie about it. Still he was able to verbalize that to me and tell me how he felt. He too has grown and changed, of course.”
If at all possible, we go out of our way to avoid those triggers that bring back the tragedy. Or we learn to deal with them as best we can.
Rita: “You can desensitize yourself over a period of time. Michael died in a car. Over time, I had to get back into a car again. I could not possibly never again get into a car.”
Lorenza: “Marc died on the water’s edge and I find it hard to go to that beach. When it rains a lot in summer, I feel better, no one goes to the beach. I can’t sit by the beach and watch the waves on a sunny day. But, when it’s a nice, rainy, cloudy day, then I can sit by the water. I have a photo of my son sitting there watching the water and that’s what I do. I can feel some serenity that way.”
Barbara E.: “Mike and I still live in the same community in which Brian grew up. We pass the same soccer fields and parks in which he played since he was five years old and the same elementary and high school that Brian attended. The memories are mostly good now, and many times it brings Brian closer to us.”
Some of us like to say our deceased children continue to offer us
“gifts.” Others of us take offense at that word. Ariella in particular is able to think that events that occur now in her life are “gifts” from Michael. Readers will likely agree or disagree. That is the way it is with bereavement … . There is no set path, there is always deviation and there are great differences, but eventually all seem to lead to a form of acknowledgment and, eventually, yes, even laughter.
Ariella: “Our kids now offer us gifts. I’m grateful for the feeling that I have at all times that Michael is watching over us. I think that he is creating opportunities for us. Things happen, opportunities crop up that are rare and we were not looking for them. Wonderful things happen, as if a flower is growing from cement.”
“For instance, Bob and I now live on a boat. Bob and Michael always wanted to do that; I was hesitant. I was afraid of the weather. What would I do with all my stuff? What kind of community would I have? But they wanted it badly. Then, when Michael passed, we had to make a decision. I swear to you that it was Michael’s words in my head that said, ‘Go for it.’”
Naturally, there is room for disagreement among us, as there should be.
Phyllis: “I resent the word ‘gift.’ I understand what Ariella is saying, and I am grateful for the family that I have. But to say that Andrea left me a gift? I don’t like that word.”
Lorenza: “Of course we would trade all the gifts in the world to have our children back in our arms.”
There are times when we do seem to receive guidance from our deceased children. We seem to think in terms that they would use, and we wonder if those words are coming from them. Whatever it is, it helps to make our lives easier so that we do smile and laugh again, particularly if we can think that they are with us somehow and watching over us, wanting us to find enjoyment here on earth. We talk to them and we feel better knowing they have that place—forever—in our lives.
Barbara G. : “My visits to the cemetery are the perfect example of the healing powers of time. At first I cried bitterly, I was angry. I stamped my foot at the gravesite, ranting and raving that Howie did not belong there. When his brothers married, I buried a copy of each invitation for him to have, when his nephew was
born, I brought him a birth announcement. I always have silent conversations with Howie and bring him up to date on family doings. I ask him to look after his brothers.”
“And then, not long ago, I was bent over the grave having my one-sided conversation when I realized I was joking with him and speaking to him just as I did when he was alive. This was a first for me and I was glad when I realized I was doing it.”
Of course, there are still many times when we feel down, and we stop and ask ourselves if we really are healing or if we are just becoming better actresses. No, we agree … we all are truly recovering.
Ariella: “I’m grateful for who I am today. I like the new me and I like that we celebrate our kids’ lives and not their deaths.”
Rita: “I could not dance for years. Michael loved to dance; now when I dance I am sure my son smiles. Now when I dance, I am celebrating his life and all the beauty and love he brought to mine.”
I married my first husband, John Perri, when I was eighteen years old and he was twenty. People speculated that we “had to get married,” but that wasn’t true. We waited three years to get pregnant. Our first child was carefully planned and very much wanted. We had a son, and we named him Neill.
He had brown curly hair and big brown eyes with long lashes. Most of my friends weren’t married when he was born, and they doted on him. Neill was the first grandchild of John’s and my parents, the first nephew of our siblings, and the first great-grandchild of both sets of my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were still young enough to babysit for him, play with him and cherish him. Sadly, they were still alive to bury him.
When Neill was four years old, John and I had a second son whom we named Phillip. So began the closest and purest relationship between two brothers that I ever witnessed. We used to joke that they were twins born four years apart. Neill was shy with other children, and Phillip became his best friend.
The statistics are against teenage marriages, and mine was no different. Immaturity on both our parts was probably the real reason for my divorce. Phillip was still a baby, but Neill was devastated. He never got over the dissolution of what to him was the perfect family. Although he acted out at home and took out his rage on John, me and, later, his stepfather Cliff, his scholastic record was impeccable.
Teachers loved and praised Neill. In fifth grade, he became a school crossing monitor and, by sixth grade, he was the lieutenant of the squad. He won many awards, commendations and medals throughout secular and Hebrew school and was accepted into the college of his choice, Renssalaer Polytechic Institute. In his late teens and early adulthood, Neill fought and won his hardest battle. He overcame his shyness, made good friends, began dating and came into his own as a young man. Although he earned a master’s degree in engineering from RPI, he chose to work in retail for a drug store chain.
Neill’s career advanced rapidly. He was set to begin a managerial position shortly after his summer vacation. During that vacation, he attended his cousin’s bat mitzvah with John’s side of the family, went to Connecticut on an overnight trip with Cliff and me, and spent time with Phillip. On Wednesday, June 14, he went to a large amusement park with his friends, including the girl I hoped might have become his wife. On the morning of Thursday, June 15, he took a bus trip to Atlantic City with my mother.
As I was getting ready for work that day, I received a telephone call from my aunt. She summoned me to her home, and Phillip went with me. We arrived to find my aunt and uncle frozen in place, the color drained from their faces. Wordlessly, my aunt handed me the phone. My brother Richard was on the line.
“There is no easy way to tell you this,” he said. “Maddy, Neill died.” At that moment, the worst in my life, heaven and earth and hell became one. The second worst moment came as I turned to Phillip and told him that his brother was dead. He crumpled in my arms, sobbing.
My mother was in anguish when I spoke with her on the phone. She had first called my aunt with the tragic news because she could not bear to tell me herself. She related that she and Neill had both taken naps on the bus. She awakened to find him in a sound sleep and noticed that his arm had turned blue. On their arrival in Atlantic City, she said to the casino representative who met them, “There’s something wrong with my grandson.” The woman took one look at Neill and cleared the bus. Paramedics were brought on board, but my beautiful son was already dead. His body was removed to a nearby hospital, while my mother was taken to a room in the casino hotel by a security guard who stayed with her.
My husband Cliff, my former husband John, his wife Mary, my brother Richard, Phillip and I met my mother in Atlantic City. When we were told there had to be an autopsy, we found a local rabbi to sanction it. As it turned out, the rabbi had lost a child. I phoned my best friend Jill and told her Neill had died. She didn’t believe me. She thought to herself, “Well, Maddy has finally cracked up.” To this day, we
both wish that had been the truth … that I had lost my mind rather than that Neill had died.
Everything about his death remains surreal … . his original death certificate listed the cause of death as “pending.” Even after the autopsy, followed by a review of the slides in Trenton, New Jersey, the final death certificate listed the cause of death as “undetermined.” After much pleading, I finally was sent a letter that stated he died from a “probable viral infection affecting the heart.”
When we saw Neill in the morgue, he lay on a bed, covered up to his face with a blanket. He was translucent, the blue veins showing through his skin. But he looked so peaceful. There was no fear or pain in his face. From across the room, I whispered what I had said to him at bedtime throughout his life. “Good night Neill. I love you. No dreams.”
Cliff wrote a poem, “Gentle Guardian,” to read at Neill’s funeral. It described Neill’s honesty, intelligence and unique style, his anguish over his parents’ divorce and the bright future he had created for himself. The poem concluded by asking, “Why did God take him with so much to miss? Without sirens or shrieks or alarms? God took him so gently with just a kiss, he died in his Grandma’s arms. Before you feel anger or cry with rage, or just don’t know what you should feel, there’s a new Guardian Angel reporting today. ‘Hello, my name is Neill.’”
Neill was spiritual. He believed in God, heaven and destiny, and I loved him with all my being. At age sixteen, he wrote an autobiographical essay for school. It finished by saying, “I have a few basic goals for the future. I want to drive a car soon. I want to go to college … I am probably going to major in electronics engineering. My main goal is to have a long, happy life.”
By June 15, 1995, Neill had completed two of his three goals.
Madelaine Perri Kasden
Until We Meet Again
W
ill we ever again see our children? Where, when, how? What will they look like? Will we ever be able to speak with them and hold them close?
This is the chapter that offers no definitive answers.
When our sons and daughters were torn from us, we were left with gaping wounds that cannot heal unless and until we can once again reach out and touch them and know that they are well. What wouldn’t we give to once again see them smile? See them as they are today?
We all expected to see our children grow older. There would be grandchildren who resembled them, who resembled us. We would see our own children take on the responsibilities and the cares and woes that come with adulthood and eventual middle age. We were robbed of those joys of passage.
Ariella: “It bothers me that someday I’ll be old and have no one to leave things to. There’s no continuation. There’s no one to worry about, or care about. It’s going to end with Bob and me and that’s a very sad thing. I try not to dwell on it too much.”
We have even been robbed of the mixed emotions parents experience upon seeing their children lose their youthful good looks and become balding, aging adults.
Lorenza: “It bothers me that I don’t know what my son would look like at forty. When his friends come to the door and they haven’t changed, I am glad because that means he’d still look the same, too. But five years from now, it’s going to be so painful because his friends will change. Marc is always going to be a young man. I’ll never know what he would have looked like.”
Audrey: “Jessica was not even sixteen when she died. Now all her friends are grown and starting their careers. Where would Jessie be?”
Ariella: “I decided to stop seeing Michael’s friends. This way I can keep him and them in my mind the way they were. I prefer that.”
Barbara E.: “Recently at a restaurant, my husband and I saw an elementary school friend of Brian’s seated at the first table with his parents. So many thoughts and feelings passed over us at once. We spoke with them and learned that the young man is now an investment banker and his sister had graduated from law school. Meanwhile, in our hearts and dreams, Brian is still a twenty-one-year-old fun-loving college student. Although it’s been years since he lost his battle with leukemia that is how we still experience him.”
“When I was confronted with the reality of this young man and his fortunate family, I felt jealous. Confusion after all these years. How am I supposed to feel? The guilt crept in. I didn’t want that family to think that I’m over it. I’m not and never will be. Confusion. I can either rage against my feelings or accept them. It’s a constant battle.”
With the advent of modern computer technology, graphic artists are now able to project what a person might look like years into the future. The procedure is now commonly done in police investigations to aid in the search for kidnapped children who will have aged since the time of their disappearance. We have toyed with the idea of taking our children’s
photos to a computer artist in an effort to see what they might have looked like with the passage of time. None of us has done it so far, but it is extremely tempting.
As a group, we are relatively united in our thinking when it comes to handling those heart-wrenching times that keep recurring, such as the awkward silence that still comes during a conversation with an old friend, the holiday that is wrought with memories of happier days, or the soothing of a husband whose grieving is out of sync with our own. These are tangible dilemmas, and while they may be difficult and sometimes even impossible to resolve, there is at least a way of making them more tolerable … . There is something of an answer.
Whether or not we will ever again meet our children is a question fraught with mystery, anxiety and complexity. Until that day in the future when we ourselves leave this earth, all we can offer are our own imaginations, prayers and desires, and of course our dreams.
Ariella: “I always picture Michael as being our guide, watching and protecting us.”
Maddy: “I feel that Neill is the wiser one now.”
Phyllis: “In my dreams, Andrea says to me that she has a life. I feel that if she were here today—and if she was, she would be a woman in her late thirties—she would not want me butting into her life. I have that dream repeatedly and it gives me comfort. Last September, on her birthday, I dreamed about her. In my dream, I said to her, ‘You know, Andrea, it’s enough.’ She said, ‘Get a life.’”
Rita: “Like Michael would say, ‘Chill out, Ma.’”
It is impossible for us to speak with one voice about whether or not we will see our children again. Our thoughts on the subject draw deeply upon our own psyches, beliefs and dreams. In truth, we do not even understand our own feelings on the subject.
Lorenza: “Going to church has always been part of my culture and tradition. I was what one would call a good Catholic. I attended Mass regularly and was familiar with all the prayers. Now, I realize that in saying some of the prayers, I was not aware of the significance of every word, I just said them. My faith had never been put to a test, so I thought I believed in God.”
“After my son’s death, I became aware of the significance of every word in every prayer. It is painful to hear that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. What of my son? It is difficult to hear that the apostles were told to walk on water and nothing would happen to them. Marc drowned. Do I believe in the resurrection of the dead? Where will all the bodies go?”
“And so my religion has been shaken. I go to mass now and I find some comfort there because it is calming to have hope, to dream and to look forward to a happy ending one day. I pray that God gives me the gift of faith so that I can be at peace with myself.”
“But do I believe that my son and I will meet one day? I truly don’t. Would I like to believe it? I pray that one day we will meet again.”
Of our group, only Rita and Ariella can say with assuredness that they definitely believe in an afterlife and that they will one day be reunited with their sons. The rest of us either would like to believe it, but we aren’t certain or we do not believe.
To speak openly and frankly of an afterlife is not something that is always acceptable to friends and acquaintances. Rita, who is a devout Catholic, confines herself to writing about it and discussing it with other bereaved parents, and refrains from talking about it in any depth with the “civilian” world. When she is with outsiders, she says only that she believes in an afterlife and that it gives her great comfort to know her son is well and that she will see him again someday. Here, however, she speaks her mind.
Rita: “When I was young and my father died, I always felt him spiritually, that he was with me. That he existed. Believing is a gift. But for years after my son died, I wouldn’t allow myself to think of being reunited with him because it would be ecstasy, too huge to deal with. I didn’t want to go there because I could not deal with it emotionally. Now I envision the moment in my mind’s eye.”
“Oh, Michael, my Michael, where have you been? Are you all right? I’ve dreamed of this moment millions of times in my mind. Just hold me close and tell me you’re fine. Please tell me the nightmare is ended, that you’re real and it’s not just pretend. Oh, Michael, my Michael, is this what ecstasy is? I’ve dreamed of this moment day in and day out. Did my dad come to greet you and escort
you to heaven? Were you in pain as you passed on that night? Did you miss us, too, as we so ached for you? Did you dance with the angels? Was God in clear sight? Oh, don’t say a word. Just hold me tight.”
Ariella: “My belief that there is an afterlife has helped me cope with the loss of Michael. I am convinced that I will see him again and that he exists on a higher level and is around me at all times. I’ve connected with Michael through writing twice. I wrote down a question for which I was seeking an answer and the answer came into my head. It gave me another perspective on his existence. I feel that he is fine and always with me.”
The rest of us remain conflicted and confused. Will we see our children again, will we not? Is the possibility something we have created within our own imaginations? Holding fast to the possibility that one day we will be with our children is many times all that keeps us going when there is a day or a night in which all else fails to grant us peace of mind. Even if such a thought is nothing more than a delusion, we want desperately to grasp on to it and believe it. In some ways, we are even afraid not to believe, because as Rita has said, “They have our children.”
Maddy: “I have to believe that there’s an afterlife, that someday Neill and I will be reunited. Otherwise, this life makes no sense at all. When I imagine a reunion with Neill, I see him in my mind’s eye the way he looked at the age of twenty-three when he died. He was tall, thin and had a moustache. I don’t necessarily see him smiling. I imagine him annoyed with me for the way I’ve been living, or should I say not really living since his death. I hear him asking me why if I considered his life to be so precious, I wasted so much of my own life grieving for him.”
Barbara G.: “I am no longer a religious person, nor does my religion emphasize an afterlife. However, I always picture our being reunited. Without this one belief, I don’t think I could have continued on after he died.”
Even those of us who acknowledge deep down that our longing to someday meet again with our children is more fantasy than reality still hesitate to even bring up the subject to the general public and even in some cases to our spouses.
Audrey: “I have said it to friends and the topic is usually dropped after I
talk about it. It depends on how spiritual they are. Most people just kind of smile at you and change the subject.”
For the most part we believe that energy cannot be destroyed, we prefer to go with the school of thought that believes that it changes form. And so we continue to cherish the hope that our children exist in whatever that form may be … someplace. They cannot just be gone. Their souls at least must continue to exist … someplace.
Lorenza: “As mothers, all of us obviously share a universal feeling that if we had a chance to meet our children, we would embrace them and be happy. It’s a fantasy, but a universal one.”
Ariella: “It’s very important that we hold on to the belief that energy cannot be destroyed, that it only changes form. We read everything we can about NDE—near-death experiences—looking for clues. Everything that we say about this subject is based on the fifty-fifty chance that an afterlife could be.”
Barbara G. : “To reinforce my conviction about an afterlife, I started reading all I could regarding near-death experiences as well as visiting psychics. It helped so much to feel that there would be a time when we would be together again.”
Maddy: “I do believe in an afterlife. If heaven exists, I think it exists beyond human comprehension. For example, there would be no restaurants, no jewelry, no jobs there. I believe it would be much more elevated and on a level we can’t imagine. It’s soul, and we can’t understand it”
Audrey: “I have mixed feelings. I want to believe.”
Even as we wait, we sense the company of our children here on earth. We talk to them, we ask for their opinions, we reach out for them. Of course, they are never there.
Phyllis: “I love feeling that Andrea and I will meet again, but will it happen? I don’t know. I don’t believe in an afterlife. I want to. I would love it. Whatever will happen, I can’t tell. Now, here today I can feel her touching me. I can touch her and talk to her. But when I think of her, I don’t think of her as a person. I see her as like a soul, a ghost.”
Audrey: “A lot of times I feel Jess’s presence, and other times I don’t know.”
Ariella: “Having lost my only child, I struggled with the thought of ‘am I still a mother?’ I missed not being called Mom. But I know in my heart that I
was and always will be Michael’s mom. I like to think that my relationship with Michael has not ended, but rather it has changed. It is now more personal and spiritual. But it is always there.”
Carol has studied the art of meditation and uses it to good advantage. She is also capable of being hypnotized. She recalls as a child being placed under hypnosis during dental work. The rest of us have had no experience with either meditation or hypnosis. Carol believes it is because she is able to concentrate so fully and wants so much to be able to communicate with Lisa in this way that she is able to do so.
Carol: “I use mind control. I bring myself down to a meditative state and every time I meditate I meet with Lisa. We kiss and hug and take a walk and sit together and that’s it. I can go back there any time I want. I always see her at about the age of seventeen or eighteen, before she got sick. And it’s a great thing. It brings a certain inner peace. When Lisa died, I could not meditate for a long time because I was mad at the meditation and at God. But then I got it back again.”

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