Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day


Today is Mother’s Day—my Mom’s first Mother’s Day without Mike.

Losing Mike has been the worst thing that has happened in my life so far—the most difficult death, the most intense grief.  Losing a sibling, however, could not be anything like losing a child.  I think of what my Mom must be feeling—my grief times a thousand.  Not that one can quantify or compare these things. 

As a mother myself, the idea of losing my daughter is the most frightening thing I could imagine.  I’ve said that I would give anything to have my brother back, but of course that’s not completely accurate.  If anything happened to my daughter, it would completely destroy me.  And yet, here are my parents, walking through their worst nightmare.  Since I was adopted, Mike was their only biological child.  I wonder if that makes the loss even harder.  I think that would be hard for me.  You create this beautiful baby who is always a part of you, and then he’s gone.  You give him life, and then he takes that life away.

I don’t think Mike thought through what his death would do to our parents.  He loved Mom and Dad very much—“more than you will ever know,” as he put it in his suicide note.)  Occasionally I feel anger toward him about how selfish he was for doing this to our parents, but those thoughts never make it very far.  He could not see past his own pain, and I really don’t blame him for that.  If anything, I get angry at him for not taking his meds, but that was likely a symptom of the depression as well.  The whole situation was just tragic and sad.

Through this grief journey I have been meeting other survivors of suicide along the way.  Some have lost their children to suicide, while others have lost their siblings, their partners, their friends, or their parents.

Tonight I am sending love to all of the mothers who have lost their children, and to all of the children who have lost their mothers.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you from a mom who lost her son of 18 years to suicide on May 5th, 2010... His funeral was on Mother's Day.... I know his little brother suffers immensely and his pain is just as real and horrific as mine... I don't think your pain, my pain, or my little one's pain will ever subside.. In my opinion it gets worse, not better. How could they leave us, never to see us again?? I do understand why they had to leave us though. I have no anger, just love and sadness that I was not there for him at that moment he needed me most.. I wish love and sunshine in your life, even if it has to shine through the dark clouds of our bad days, our sad days which are many... hugs to you and Thank you soooo much for sharing this blog... It has meant a lot to me, reading what you are going through and knowing we are not alone. Love and light to you :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! On reading further, the date you posted this blog was the day, Mother's Day, that my son's funeral was.. amazing, small world.. God Bless!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have searched the Internet for seven months looking for answers to my brother's suicide. Sometimes I felt crazy doing this. Now I have found what I was looking for. Thank you for your blog

    ReplyDelete