The First Time I Left Them
I was so afraid to leave them for the first time, after their dad died. I had to take a picture before I left. It was just in case it was the last time I saw them. I wanted to make sure to have that last moment with me captured. We didn’t have that when dad died.
I didn’t want to do that to them again. I didn’t want to leave them without saying goodbye. And my fear of leaving them was so real. What if I left and something happened to me? I would leave them orphans… I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to leave.
I also knew I needed some time; it was vital for me, mentally and emotionally. Yet, I wrestled with myself at how wrong it felt to leave them. Ever. I should never do it, I felt. I also knew I couldn't live by their side 24/7 to make sure nothing happened to them or me.
It was a small step in moving on and a big fear to face. I also knew they would be in good hands… My sister and my mom would be there. The break was something I needed almost as much as breath in that moment. In this picture it had been 8 weeks since their dad died.
I hadn’t let them out of my sight. I was physically with them, but I wasn’t really present with them. So many aspects of myself in those first days were shattered. Who I was, was not there anymore and not enough time had passed for me to figure out how to replace those parts of me that died with my husband.
Even now, when I say that; I think how could parts of me die with someone? Am I not my own person? Is this not just an event that happened? Both of those things factually are true; yet it is the emotion of being human that creates unseen bonds.
Those bonds are not easily navigated as cleanly in an abrupt death. It's the end of the body, end of story, right?! The love, the emotion, the connection; those things are not broken just because the person no longer exists in your life.
Those unseen pieces of humanity in me, those parts connected to him; they were left ripped in me. I was without any closure and no way to know how to process and continue on. That was something I didn’t know yet. I do know now, so deeply.
It’s up to me to rebuild myself and all the ties I agreed to make while he was here. It’s my job to find who I am without him. I realize that some parts of myself were lost in him and to get those back is a painful journey of discovery.
It doesn’t happen staying in bed crying, especially when that’s all I felt like doing. This moment, when I left my kids for the first time; it reminded me too much of those first days Grant was gone. I knew he’d never come back.
I think back on those first experiences and how delicate I was. My mind and heart and body were barely functioning. A few days of him being gone was something I’d experienced before, but then after a few days, when he didn’t come back…
It was such a blur of so many things I was not equipped to do and yet, it was the only thing I had to now learn. Those first few days without him, because I’d experienced it before, I could justify it as normal. They were not. Now I felt like I was doing that again to my kids.
I look at that smile on my face, I remember how foreign it felt to smile. The squint in my eyes, I remember how it felt to try to smile again. Behind it was so much pain and shock. I see how lost I was there. It hurts to remember it.
Leaving them for a short while was the first step in building a new life and finding the new person I would become. Had I known what it would take, I might have just laid down on the grass there with them and asked to die.
Thankfully; tragedy, loss and grief are meant to be dealt with only one day at a time. It is all that is manageable at times. That’s the gift that time gives us in grief. It’s not that time itself heals, it's that each little step, each little moment and each little day; is what gives the gift of healing.
There is no speed or time to it, it’s just a matter of which step do you want to take? How fast do you want to go? By asking myself, what is the next thing I need to do? I could break my life down into just one thing to do.
Each moment like that, building on one another. That's how I can look back at this picture now, 3 years later and remember what that was like. I stand in awe of how far I have come to rebuild myself. In so many ways I am a stronger, better, person with more depth to me than I was aware was even possible.
From this, I also know that 3 years from now, I’ll look back on a photo of me today and remember those days. This time I’m not afraid of it. This time I won’t lay down on the grass and ask if I can get out of it. Now I welcome it.
It’s not because I enjoyed it, but because I know I can do it. On the other side, after one little thing at a time, I know that what I won’t do is give up. I can do one thing. It’s that one little thing, whether it’s a big or little thing.
It’s learning to listen to myself and ask the questions that have guided me to the healing inside me. It’s this wisdom that I’ve found. That's the secret to feeling those big feelings in my grief, loss and tragedy. I’m only looking at one little thing at a time.
I know I can do that one little thing. I know as I do that one little thing, it will keep getting me through the things that seem too big to ever get through.