I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues

It would take a really long time to itemize names of  relatives whose deaths deeply affected my life. I recognize some immediately; however, others are more subtle. Many produced a melange of feelings and reactions. Others just didn't make sense, most assuredly the death of my first-born Grandson,  Philip, the heart of my thoughts today.  (Truly, no death does, especially those caused by violence; its aftermath brings debilitating and destructive responses).  I'm not the first person to identify "the roller coaster of grief,"  although I certainly felt profound relief  about five years ago when someone described it that way.  It was the first time a  label fit the ghastly mixture of emotions that assaulted me.

 I felt mutilated by anger, sometimes empty and sometimes filled with surreal thoughts that knew no words, not really.  I couldn't seem to hold onto the sanity that had hallmarked my life. I haunted bookstores and lived on the Internet, searching for answers to the "Whys!" Enraged and engorged by the sudden emptiness of life, I became my own worst nightmare.  My search for peace remained as elusive as wood smoke around a campfire.

 Mother, Daddy, and maternal Grandmother ("Mama"), all precious and beloved, died after living past "Senior" status.  The most devastating death of my life, however,  was the Sudden Infant Death (SIDS) of my firstborn Grandson.  Yes, that just about took me out of here!  From the first time I held and beheld him, I sensed that Philip had come into my life to teach me the beauty and grandeur  of love.  Yet, I did not consciously "Get it" until after his truncated life had ended.  Until he was born, sad to say, love was more abstract than actual.  A concept essentially, I could recite definitions of love long before Love Languages hit the best seller lists.  With Philip, love came alive!

It lived on our drives home after work, especially if I were late picking him up!  A little over
a year old, he would ignore me if I didn't get to the Sitter on time.  I don't know how he knew, but he did!  He didn't have the words, and he certainly couldn't tell time; still, he would turn his head, look out the window, and give  no indication that he heard me trying to "Make nice" for my tardiness. Why was I the "Designated driver"? Well, his Mom had gone away to college after his birth, so as Grandmother in Chief," I assumed the  surrogate position.  I loved it! Not being ignored; no, but  being "Nana?"  I loved the love!

After Philip died, I couldn't stand to hear the name!  Subsequently, I asked that my three Grandchildren, born years after Philip, call me "Grandmother.  Just as I don't eat applesauce because that was Philip's favorite dessert.  Irrational! Of course it is.  I didn't believe I could live to see the first anniversary of his death.  Why would I? How could I survive the most senseless act of my life? I woke up that morning, went to my storage unit, and started emptying it of all remnants of him: his clothes, toys, books---any and everything that was Philip's.  Except his favorite blanket and his favorite book, It's Not easy being a Bunny. I have them some two decades later.

For years, I rarely spoke his name! Three, to be exact., Family and friends quickly got the message not to say a word about him.  I entombed myself in my world of indescribable loss.  What about his Mother, my Daughter? A psychiatrist explained during a referral session that her youth insulated and protected her.  It probably would not have mattered what he said! Numbness had become my moment-to-moment companion, my shelter, my guiding light.  My grasp on life was as tenuous, as insubstantial as that wood smoke. 

What happened three years later? A physician friend and I had played 18-holes of golf.  As we sat in the clubhouse ("19th Hole."), for some unfathomable reason I began talking about Philip's death.  She stopped me as I was describing how he lay dead in his crib, facing East, with his pacifier half in-half out his mouth....

"Do you know what that means," she queried.

"No."

"It means he didn't suffer,  Your Grandson did not suffer.  He simply inhaled and could not exhale," my friend."

It was then that I exhaled; for the first time in three years, I could accept that he simply went to sleep and woke up in the arms of Jesus.   No words can describe my relief, my absolution! My release from long held  guilt that I had done something wrong!

Did the pain go away? No, but it ebbs and flows.  Will I ever forget Philip? Of course not! Do I still grieve? Yes! Am I grateful to God for giving Philip to me to begin my life's journey of knowing, giving, and sharing love? I just can't thank Him enough! God is God, even when I get mad at Him!