So many times I wake up thinking it was all just a very long and horrible dream. There have been some mornings, I have made it all of the way to the kitchen before it hits me. As soon as I turn that corner and face his bedroom door it all comes back. That heaviness. The weight of the chains I drag with me every day. I pull them along to the grocery store, the mall , the dentist and then home again. They are my grief. Heavy and noisy.  Noise only I can hear. As time goes on, there are moments that the weight is lessened.  A few days even weeks go by until suddenly the chains I keep in tow snag on something and jerk me backward.  Once I catch my breath again,  I tell myself that these chains are a reminder that I had you. For an all too brief time you were my life..  And then the cycle starts all over. Drag, pull, relief and snag..

It is like being trapped in a rollercoaster and someone else has the controls.  You can try and undo the seatbelt and scream for the ride to stop. But it doesn’t, it never will, and you know this.  There will be times when the ride almost becomes bearable, sometimes you might even find yourself enjoying it. Then just like always, the car begins running down a steep track and you feel as though you are losing control.

This is your life after losing a child.

Each day you have no idea know what to expect. Some days will be exhausting and debilitating. Others you will muddle through almost at a normal level. There will be days with just a glimmer of happiness, just out of reach, but you can see it. It is far worse to see all the joys and happiness that could have been.

I try to explain to people how this shit works but it is not possible. Only I can hear the screams in my head.  There is a space in time only I can visit and it is the moment everything changed and I began to walk on the edge of insanity.