Anniversaries

Anniversaries, when you are grieving, especially a profound grief, such as a child, are strange. While it’s true that we know when our loved one passes, and our logical mind knows the days, years, etc…while our hearts (our feelings) and our bodies know it differently. Often, your body will begin to relive the symptoms as if it is the moment right after their passing. In the case of my daughter, initially (and for months after), my heart hurt, every day, every minute, all the time. I couldn’t sleep, I would lay there picturing what happened and replaying memories over and over again. Each year, these symptoms come back, as if it is happening again. Before the accident that day, I never knew that your whole body could grieve with you.

For those that are grieving, it’s not just the life loved one lived, or the memories that you made that you can’t go back to, it’s also the future that you knew you would have. For example, looking forward to taking her senior pictures that summer. Planning college trips. Thinking about her being married or having children.

After a couple of months had passed, people asked if it was a bit easier with the passage of time. It wasn’t at all, especially that soon after. If anything, it was more real, because each day you logically knew that she wasn’t coming home, but your heart (mind/emotions) kept thinking that she would. The longer it had been, the less the chance was that there was some mistake and somehow I would get to see her.

Honestly, after the first year anniversary, I did think that maybe the 2nd of each missed holiday might be a little bit easier. However, I found that the second year was harder. It was like, regardless of the excruciating pain there already was…there must have also been some numbness that was only felt as it faded away. The second year was just as painful as year one.

Each year around the anniversary, I stop being able to sleep, feel closer to tears, often have a hard time eating, and I get an achiness in my heart. Even if I wasn’t looking at a calendar, I think this would still happen. Your body remembers the pain, the shock, the PTSD you went through when you lost your loved one. Especially a child, one that was tragically taken in a second, when it was least expected. Although it is rare, broken-heart syndrome is very real.

Parents should live longer than their children. Anniversaries are very challenging. Parents retain connections to their child that is no longer with them. Almost like an invisible umbilical cord that attaches you to where they are. I believe that signs are real, and that, although I believe she is in Heaven, I also believe she is still very much with us and lets us know with signs that she is watching down on us. It seems like the closer the the anniversary we are, the more the signs are shown.

This year is year ten. We didn’t get to see her graduate high school, go to college, find/chase her passion (music), get married, or have children. It simultaneously feels like forever since we got to see her and like it couldn’t possibly be ten years since we last got to see her.

Ten years ago my 17 year old daughter was in a one car accident on her way to work from volunteering to teach middle schoolers at band camp. It was a sunny day. We have no idea why the accident happened. Ten years into grief doesn’t make me a master of it, but I feel like I have moved from just surviving to finding ways to thrive. I know that she would want me to be happy and would be my loudest cheerleader. This one event changed our family in so many ways. I had a hard time finding many resources to help me through the last few years. The sites, memes, or books I did find, helped in so many ways. I am hopeful to create a space here to help other families with loss. It can be any loss, I experienced much of it in my life. But, I especially want to help parents cope with their child loss. I’m hopeful to create a site that will give those who are grieving a place to go to share and be understood and a place to find solace in the fact that they are not alone.