You Would Be Mad, Too
What would you do?
What would you do when your child was taken from you? So suddenly, too. Taken by some senseless moments of a disturbed mind. Or by a disease that noone can seem to understand. Or by some other act of God.
You would, no doubt, try to reason through it. Ignore the grief of your heart. Find a purpose- a drive- a reason. A reason to move on through and do the things you needed to do.
You would meet with the politicians, the pundits, the press media clamoring at your doors. You would do what you needed to do.
But someday, they would go away. The police would pack up their offices, the special investigators would solve the puzzle- as much as they could. The doctors would tell you everything that they would. It would still leave you wondering why, why they were taken from you.
You keep pressing forward- making everyone remember. Determined. Driven. You wouldn’t let them be forgotten. If their memory lives on then somehow they do too. But slowly… those who listened would move on, along to the next story.
And you too… they start to fade. You write furiously- as not to forget. Preserve the pictures, the videos. Compile everything you could. Leave their rooms just as they left them- the bed kept unmade. That favorite doll baking in the window. Just as their little hands had left them.
You go to someplace new, someplace they had never been. Try to move on, try to forget they aren’t there. Try to remind yourself it won’t really be so long before you see them again. Heaven is a comfort, not just a theory anymore.
Someone unexpected remembers. Someone asks you to come and speak. Show the pictures of the child use wished you could keep. You speak to large and small numbers of people- and try to bury the anger at those who could make a difference, but can’t seem to look you in the eyes. Because not looking at you, demonstrates the cowardice that allowed your child to leave.
You remember their heartbreaks, how upset when they scraped their knees. Were they scared? Did they cry for mommy and daddy to save them, or did they go in peace?
You pray and you pray- everyday. What else could you do if it was your child?
Someone is kind. Someone remembers, and wants to show you they care. And the pain is fresh again. Someone else wants to use their story for the cause. Someone else asks why… what difference will this make? Why do you do this?
You would speak of your child, how action could have saved them. How action could save someone else. Why must children keep dying, of violence, of disease, why can’t the world be a little more fair to those so innocent? Why can’t we do more to protect them?
You try a new routine, an old routine, someway- not to forget- but to make it easier. Is the pain of losing a child every something we can forget?
You play it over in your mind- how it could have been different. How they could have survived. Beaten the cancer. Ran away from the shooter. Hidden somewhere else from the weather. So many scenarios. So many ways.
At the end of the day, at the end of each day, what would you do? I imagine you would be mad, too.
This blog post was inspired by the following article from the Washington Post, on a family from Newtown, as well as the many families I read about through social media who have lost their children. To read please click on the following:
After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet- by Eli Saslow
