Walking the Long Road

The emotions are still raw and painful even after 9 days. Who would have thought, certainly not I, but I've not been through much like this before. I'm managing to minimize their tumultuous nature, to project a facade of normality while amidst others, but in the alone time, in the dark, I cry, I feel, I weep, I ache. It hurts. It is pain to the depths of my soul. Some days, I don't want to awake, I just want to dream it all away, pretend my life was as before. It's ugly, it's raw, and I cannot escape. It's so hard to feel this alone, this strange, knowing but a few have walked in these shoes of mine. I want a crystal ball, I want to know how it is going to all turn out, but that will never be. So I blindly take one step after another, fumbling through my pain and grief, hoping and praying to find solid ground, to find some footing in this new state of reality.

I had hoped and hoped beyond hope, wished and wished more, planned and made plans for those plans, and prayed and begged, that with everything he had, all the help, support, interventions, and love, things would turn out for him...and his story would be different....Different from those whose stories I've seen played out before me, my whole life. But it wasn't to be....

I know a lot of the nature of the beast that has claimed my son. I am painfully familiar with its ever changing course from the heights of soaring eagles, to the depths of hell. I hate my son, I loath him, I despise him, I pity him, I'm scared for him, I miss him, I love him. I hate this duality, but I can't go back, I don't know how.

I curse this illness, this disease that has tangled his mind, this illness that has taken a hold and twisted him, and now robbed me of my son....So I sit here among the ruins and try to piece my life back together again...and that of my family.

I am constantly playing games with "what if...", wondering what I could have done differently for him and for his siblings. I'm torn up inside with guilt...what did I miss, what signs did I not see, what could I have done differently, could his actions have been prevented, and if they had been prevented would there have been a next time.... But the rational brain knows that there isn't anything I could have done differently. His choices where his to make and he made them, but it doesn't make it any easier. I wish I had a crystal ball or were omnipotent... but that is not to be...I am but a humble mother who has lost a part of herself, a part that was more precious than life itself...and so I hurt, a hurt that pales in description, and it is all I can do right now to breathe...breathe through the pain...and hold on....