One Year Anniversary

February 16, 2006

It seems so wrong to me, on an instinctual level, to call the passing of a certain period of time relating to a death an anniversary. For me, anniversaries have always been pleasant things, much like birthdays. Anniversaries and birthdays are celebrations of milestones in our lives, pleasant times we want to remember. I, personally, have always associated the word "anniversary" with pleasantness. That is, until now.

My sisters (all three of them!) and my folks arrived on or about the 12th of this month for a visit. Dave is still gone to New Orleans, so everyone thinks it is best that I not be alone on this day. I don't really have any feelings about this marking of the passing of time, one way or another.

No matter what, Danny is dead. I can, and in fact must and do go on living, but that does not mean that my life is as it was before. I know this. I am unsure if my family, as much as we love one another, really understands this.

 I have always been somewhat emotionally fragile, and when I was a little girl, would cry at the drop of a hat. If mom or dad just looked at me wrong I would break out in tears.  Imagine with me, if you will, a tall thin champagne flute glass sitting in the middle of a table that is not quite level. When you fill the glass to the very tip top, it just barely fits. But when you turn to walk away, the simplest motion, perhaps the brush of your skirt on the edge of the table, causes the unstable glass to sway and some of the precious liquid to spill over the top. This is what it feels like to be emotionally unsure of who you are and that you are so full of despair and hopelessness that the slightest breeze could possibly tip you over and upset the balance that is now your life.

With my family here in La Paz with me, I find it is infinitely worse. I have only nephews, and 5 of them at that, so they are common topics of conversation. When a sister would mention "Oh, B is doing so and so" or "L is with this really nice young lady" I would break into tears. Did I want this to happen? Well, of course not! But happen it did. What used to be an easy conversation between sisters who were closer-than-this became strained. There was a feeling of sadness and loss in the air. When I lost Danny, he wasn't the only one I lost.

One of the connections that I had always had with my sisters, the *boy* thing, was no longer there. How do I relay to them what is going on with my daughters when every time they bring up their sons I break into tears?? I no longer have the ability to relate about those moments in time. "MJ jumped his dirtbike and got hurt just the other day." I answered "C got a "B" in her Spanish class." I found it difficult, at times impossible, to talk about anything, even small things. Things like going to the mercado (market) for fresh fruit and veggies didn't interest me. I didn't want to walk along the beach anymore. I moped ... a lot ... while they were visiting. I mean, I did what I needed in order to make them comfortable at the b&b. but that was all I could do. I did not have the ability to "buck up" and share in the laughter as it occurred. It was as though I was standing just outside a picture window that looked into the house that was my life but couldn't participate in the moments that made up my life. I was bitter. I don't know that I realized it fully at the time, but I see it now. Don't get me wrong ... I did NOT want anything horrid to happen to my nephews, or my brother-in-laws, or my dad BUT I did NOT want what happened to Danny to happen either.  The question "why me?" reared it's ugly head much too frequently and I would sit on my pity-pot for an unhealthy period of time, until someone would say "Don't you think it's time you dealt with this?" or perhaps a more pointed "You know, Jean, it's been a year and you are still angry and bitter. In order to maintain some sort of motion, you need to keep your forward momentum going. That means that you need to talk to God and get this stuff sorted out before it kills you!"

While the family was there, I had a reason to get out of bed in the mornings. I would get the coffee ready the night before and set it on the timer to be ready for early-morning coffee. Early morning on vacation in La Paz is somewhere between 8 and 10 am, depending. I usually rolled out of bed closer to 10 on those mornings, but no one seemed to care. The family helped getting C off to school on those mornings and for that I was grateful. I really had no interest in who was coming or going, if the doors were open or shut, and whether or not our business survived really ceased to matter to me. 

For a while, anyway, I fell into a "functioning depression" of sorts.  I heard the term a lot from friends "functioning alcoholic" or "recovering alcoholic" and likened myself to a "functioning depressed person". What that meant was that I got up every day and did the things that were expected of me. I showered, I took care of my personal hygiene, I got dressed and then I would walk the dogs on the malecon (boardwalk) by the bay. When we had guests while family was there, I did what I had to do ... no more ... no less ... just enough to get by.  I simply did not care!! 

I remember a friend saying to me "Do you think C misses Danny?" and I spat out angrily "How would I know what she feels? She will NOT talk to me about it!!" Of course C wouldn't talk to me about Danny's death, because each and every single time she tried to that first year, she would be met with a flood of tears. Me sobbing and unable to accurately express why did not alleviate the pain that I know she must have been feeling too. Danny's death quickly became a subject that we just left alone. Buried. Deep. Never to see the light of day. Oh but it did. And when it did it was not pretty...

I was sad all the time. Not just a sort of "oh, today I'm a bit unhappy" kind of sad but a "piece of my heart has been taken out, stomped on and replaced" kind of unhappy. A deep seated, painful kind of unhappy that even the worst person on earth should never feel. The kind of sadness that makes you question your sanity. The kind of sadness that, even when you try, is the hardest thing you've ever had to shake.

Earlier I said that I have always been emotionally fragile, and that is a true statement. In spite of that, however, I am also a survivor. In my family, I have always been "the strong one". Emotional? Yes. Strong? Yes. I do not know how those two work together but they do. No matter what happened, everyone knew that I would be ok because, well, I always WAS. Nothing could stop me from my mantra of "You either do what you set out to do or you die trying." Well, almost nothing.

When you lose a child, the loss is more poignant than any other thing you will ever feel in your life. Life certainly doesn't prepare you for death. At least, not the death of a child ... your child. There is a time that, thinking back, you remember hearing of someone else losing a child and you think "Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry for those parents but thank God it isn't me." Only now, this time, it IS you and you don't know what to do. This is a grief so profound, so utterly unexpected that there is no place to put it.

I don't ever expect to "get over" losing my son. I don't believe there will ever come a day that I will be able to wash my hands of his death. There is no pretty ribbon to wrap around the box named sorrow and tie into a nice neat bow. Death is not pretty. It is, in fact, messy. There is no way to easily explain what happens during this grieving process. I can only tell you that it is different from person to person, and each person will take their own unique time to work their way through the process. For it is that ... a process.

I will tell you that every night, when I had a night terror and recurring dream of the accident, I would wake up crying or even screaming. While Dave was not home, I would call on my precious Heavenly Father to sit with me, and He would. Throughout the entire time of Dave's absence, my best friend Jesus never let me down. He never disappointed. He held me in the circle of His arm's embrace. He showed me His love, once again, in the rising and falling of the ocean's tide. 

When I needed a more "earthly friend", He provided those as well. There were several people who were, and remain to this day, my mainstay and helpers of my faith in Him. Sure I questioned Him and His wisdom. I would be lying, and therefore remiss, if I said otherwise. I knew always, in my heart of hearts, that He knows best. That doesn't mean that there weren't moments in time that I was drastically overwhelmed by this loss. I believe, however, that even that feeling He understood ... and He loved me still ... no matter what. 

I am thankful that Jesus gave His life for me, in a different kind of light. I honestly know, not think or believe, but know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God knows how I feel. That He walked the walk and now He is teaching me, by examples in His Word, how to walk the walk and talk the talk.  I pray, most sincerely, that I do not disappoint.