Grief is strange. I guess "nonlinear" would be a better way to describe it.
You can be going along with your life with your grief feeling like a manageable backpack. It is never gone, but sometimes it can be distributed across your body and carried without really slowing your pace. You do life without anyone even knowing you have something to grieve about. You take care of yourself, your family, your home, and your job. You are okay.
And then, out of nowhere, the weight is once again too much. So heavy that the actions of everyday life are too much. No longer a backpack, but an extra large trunk. Without handles. No way to even get a grip of it.
I can barely stand much less carry the weight on my heart. I thought I was fine, but I am not fine. Not even close.
This afternoon was the perfect day for some cleaning; a March day warm enough to crack the windows in the Midwest. Cleaning, organizing, and laundry with a backdrop of sunshine and praise music.
Dusting led to freshening up my chotchkies for spring, the perfect time for chickens on the mantel. Time to put away a flowerless vase.
I pause. It's your vase. I turn it over to see your initials carefully carved into the bottom. And the year 2019 (before all of this).
One of the many pieces of pottery you made and gifted to me...probably for Mother's Day.
Oh, the irony of it all. A Mother's Day gift for a person you no longer talk to, much less call "Mom."
Your initials, the ones I gave you. The ones your Dad and I hemmed and hawed over for nine months as we tried to pick the perfect combination of names that represented both of our families, especially the strong men in our families. It brought me so much joy to name you after my grandpa. I couldn't wait for you to carry on the family legacy with your name.
The name you have now thrown away. The name you no longer identify with. Your "dead name."
I break down under the weight of it all and want to smash the vase into a million pieces, like my heart. I want to scream about all the pain you have caused us. I want to strangle the people who convinced you that you are something that you are not.
I want you to come home. I want this nightmare to be over. I want to wake up and have my little boy, turned young man, back.
I am not okay. I cry out in utter hopelessness and confusion. I cannot carry the trunk.
I am not okay today. But tomorrow, with your pottery put away, my grief will return to its designated place on my back and I will resume my pace of life.
Since I don’t accept the gender cult my 17 year old daughter run away from home 8 months ago and went to complain to social services that her family are “transphobic and abusive”. They immediately concluded that we were “emotionally abusive” and offered my daughter a studio flat and £400 per month. She has refused to speak to us since then. One month after this I saw her at Sainsbury’s by accident. She immediately began running away from me despite the fact that I was desperate to reach out to her so I tried to call her. I shouted her name twice. She run. I felt horribly when I saw her running but not as horribly as when police turned up on my door to say that a “Public Order Act” allegation had been made against me and that I was invited to a “voluntary interview” or else I would get arrested. So I went to my police interview to discover that I had been accused of “deadnaming” by my own daughter. During the police interview I ranted and raved at police and defended myself totally and the case went no further but I was so hurt that I had a proper mental breakdown. I started smashing the frames containing pictures of her. I cried and cried all day. That broken glass exorcised so much. I have never told this to anybody. My family have noticed that I replaced some photographs but they don’t know how this was done. They don’t know about the smashed glass and the tears and my calls to the Samaritans on that day.
As long as he is alive, there is a chance for an embodied relationship. It does not make it any easier. You are in a liminal place, which is a VERY hard place to be.
My son took his life, so there is no chance of return as the incarnated child I birthed ... AND I have a better relationship with my spirit child than I did in the last two years of his life, which was low contact. I had not hugged my child for a very long time and not by my choice. Toward the end his attitude toward us started to thaw, but I was afraid of saying or doing "the wrong thing," so I was very careful with my words and actions; and we were hopeful. He was planning to change his name legally again to bring back the family names and the middle name we gave him. He asked us to be his witnesses. We found all the completed signed, legal paperwork after his death.
I hope your prodigal child returns home. Hope lives, love is powerful, and that is why we grieve.