Life goes on…..but it feels so wrong without my child.

Every parent of child loss knows this lonely pain. It’s the pain of watching life go on without your child. It hurts and it hurts really bad. It feels all wrong, and nothing makes sense. We are plagued day after day with the gnawing questions of “why?” and “how can this happen?”.

Yet….despite our questions and our pain, we see it happening before our eyes every day. New memories are being made. People have gone back to smiling and feeling joyful. People are busy with their own lives building and nurturing their own families.

And parents of loss……well, we feel left alone. Isolated. Lonely. Broken. Sad.

I love hearing from friends of my son. It makes me happy when they tell another “Mike story.” We laugh. We reminisce. We remember more stories.

And, at the end of the day I cry. It just isn’t fair — it isn’t right — that life has continued on without my son. He has a wife. He has three children. He has brothers and sisters. He has a mom. And, we all love him and want him here with us. And, yet………he’s not here.

I honestly don’t know that a parent will ever totally get over these feelings. Sure, we can rationalize and think things through. We “get it.” We understand that all of life can’t come to a forever standstill. But, our hearts are having a tough time catching up to intellect. Our hearts are hurting and nothing makes much sense at all.

It’s been five years since my second son died, and thirty years since my baby boy left this earth. I will always long for both of them to be here. I will always wonder how life would have been with both of them here. I will always have an ache in my heart when I see others the ages of my sons. I understand that life has gone on. Of course I understand that!

But, I will always wish that life didn’t have to go on without my child.

With love,

Clara

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