The Graduation Night that Wasn't

Tonight is the graduation for Tallahassee's Lincoln High School.  Christopher should have been there tonight, although he was not a student there when he died.

Christopher had been attending an alternative high school in Tallahassee, the Academy for Academics and Technology.  Due to budget constraints, that school was closed at the end of the 2007-2008 academic year.  Truth be told, Christopher really wanted to finish out his high school career at Lincoln.

So hear I am at home, rather than at the graduation that should have been, but wasn't to be.  Know that I know that Christopher is not in heaven wishing to be at the Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center for a too-long ceremony.  He is where he'd rather be, I know that, but it doesn't change the fact that I miss him so much and would so prefer to have him here.   Call me selfish; I won't argue.

You know, when you have a child, it is like instantly that you begin to envision the future milestones, high school graduation just being one of many.  You never imagine that these things won't come to pass; you just assume that everything will progress according to the "normal" script.  

I have found that there is no script for the life that you have left after the death of a child.  I have met people who try to tell me when I will "turn the corner" on this grief.  They don't know squat.  

Truthfully, I don't know squat; I just take it a day at a time.  

I have no choice.

Unrealistic Expectations

I have to admit, I have a lot of unrealistic expectations of the people around me.  I have found that people in a similar situation have similar such unrealistic expectations.  Actually, I saw this in myself after talking to my cousin.  It is so easy to recognize in others; I had to look at myself to see if the same thing were in me and it was.  Let me explain.

I hold it against people when they don't understand something that there is absolutely no way that they could understand.  The grief of losing a child who has grown into a person that you know and really like.  I enjoyed who Christopher had become.  Of course, I loved him, but I was so very thankful that I liked him and really enjoyed him.  

People don't know what to say to me, what to do for me.  A neighborhood family, with whom I have not been very close in recent years, sent me an graduation announcement for their daughter who is finishing high school this year.  At the same time, Christopher would have/should have been graduating.  I see such an invitation, sent without any apparent realization that I am grieving not being able to celebrate with my child, and I want to just scream, "Are you freakin' crazy?"

When I step back and pause before crying out, I realize that their lives are going on.  And they should as they haven't lost what I've lost.  There is no way that they can know the pain that I know.  It is unrealistic to think that they would.  I've often said that this is probably the only experience in my life that I honestly wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

I am so very sensitive to people who, even in jest, complain about their kids . . . about them coming home from college with all their stuff . . . about anything.  I want to scream out, "Do you know how fortunate you are to have your kids?"  Truth is they don't; I didn't as much as I would now.  

I've always heard that you don't know what you have until you have lost it.  I think that is true.  One thing that I have been thankful for is that I almost lost Christopher around his 16th birthday; we really struggled as a family.  But what that difficult time did was give me an appreciation for the last 15 months that I had Christopher here.  I enjoyed that time with him in a way that I couldn't have had we not been estranged for a brief period of time.  I knew what it was to not have an enjoyable relationship and I was so very thankful for the good times we were enjoying.

People can't understand and they don't know what to say.  Truth is, they will never say the right thing, as far as I am concerned.  I need to extend them grace.  I don't want them to understand.  Nobody should have to understand.  

And another thing I have to realize is that just be cause my world has changed and as a result, I have changed, doesn't mean that anybody else is going to change or has changed.  People who didn't know how to deal with emotions before aren't going to magically  be sensitive and insightful and yet I am disappointed when they don't "get it."  I was disappointment with there were family and friends who I think "should have known" and didn't even as much as acknowledge the difficulty of special days such as Adoption Day or Mother's Day.

I need to let go of these unrealistic expectations.  It is hard as I keep finding them.  They are all over the place, successfully pulling me down.  I need to take the power back and mange the expectations so that I don't have to manage more pain.  I have enough pain to deal with, thank you very much.

Surprised by Grief

I have gotten pretty good at anticipating "sad."  Like today, for example.  I knew that I'd be attending the dedication of a bench on campus in memory of one of my Social Work classmates who died in a car accident last March.  I know that I found such events to be full of mixed emotions because on one hand, it is reassuring to see the love of family and friends, but the reality is that the whole event is the result of a tragic loss.  So, I knew that to attend such an event would evoke sadness as I could empathize with this family's loss.

But, later after that event, I attended the FSU College of Social Work's Convocation.  I did this purely out of support for my many friends who are graduating with their MSW tomorrow.  As I was taking a picture of my dear friend, Jessica, I enjoyed a sense of pride and excitement on her behalf.  After I sat back down, I realized that this was just a glimpse of the joy that I should be experiencing this month when Christopher should have been graduating from Lincoln High School.  

This severe grief was a surprise.  I expected to feel this way near Lincoln's commencement activities, but not when I was watching my peers graduate.

I think that I just need to accept that there are going to be sad time, some which can be anticipated like our adoption day and Christopher's birthday, but that there will there will be others than remind me what could have been or what I think should have been.  

I told a friend of mine today that this entire process is so very surreal; there are times that I just can't believe that this is my life.  I will forever be a parent whose child died.  This event doesn't define me, but it certainly will always be a big part of who I am and to some extent who become.  

This whole thing really stinks.