I tend to hate having these questions thrown at me, albeit they come from loving and caring family and friends who are generally concerned and deserve an answer, they suck all the same.
Hmmm, how am I doing? Really.. not that great. How am I feeling? Honestly pretty shitty... How am I supposed to be doing or feeling? How would you feel in my position? What's the matter? My child is dead, gone from this life!!! When a child takes their own life it's horrible. When Austin died a multitude of feelings came crashing down on me. And those emotional waves continue to crash into my life with every blink of my eyes, every breath I take and every baby step I attempt to make each and every day. How I feel is incomprehensible to most... For the most part I feel inadequate, like I've failed miserably as a parent. The one most important thing we teach our children from the day they are born is that our love is unconditional. I feel like I've failed to do that.
Children deserve our unconditional love no matter what they do or how they live their lives. We don't have to like what they do, the choices they make, the mistakes they make... yes we can be disappointed but that doesn't mean we'll love them any less. And I believe somewhere in that equation I messed up with Austin. He made good and bad decisions in his life, but hey, so do I, so who am I to judge??? I am just a human being too and each choice we make in our day to day lives is a life lesson to learn and grow from.
In the big scheme of things does any of the bad choices our children make ever truly matter? NO, they are our children, we love them regardless of what they do, because no one can love a child more then their parent. At least that is how I feel about my children. I thought I had done everything possible to prove that to my kiddies, to be a better parent to my kids then my parents were to me. Yet as I look at the completed headstone about to be placed on my sons grave, I question my very being and ability to do that.
When it truly comes down to asking those questions, you have to ask yourself; do you want to know the truth or do you want me to lie and tell you what you want to hear...
Sometimes the truth is ugly at that moment, and sometimes the truth is what we survivors are willing to tell you at that moment.
Sadly sometimes the true thoughts/feelings come spewing forth like I'm a possessed person vomiting the green split pea soup of the movies. This has a tendency to freak people out and make them worry. When I say I don't feel like moving forward or moving on its because there is a blackness within my heart that is so deep no light can penetrate it. No child should die before their parent. Not once in the last 30 years have I considered, thought of or attempted to self harm in any way shape or form. I've survived the suicidal death of my brother and lived through the destruction of my family as a child. And now as an adult and parent of a suicide victim I am surviving again and watching my own family, my children, going through hell. It sucked the first time, and you can bet it sucks even more the second time and I would never subject my family to a third. Once was enough, twice was overkill(sorry for the pun).
The "ability" or "choice" to truthfully voice/respond to these questions is a risky business indeed. I'm petty sure if we had health insurance l'd have been institutionalized by now...
But this is my life right now and onward I will keep going...
Hmmm, how am I doing? Really.. not that great. How am I feeling? Honestly pretty shitty... How am I supposed to be doing or feeling? How would you feel in my position? What's the matter? My child is dead, gone from this life!!! When a child takes their own life it's horrible. When Austin died a multitude of feelings came crashing down on me. And those emotional waves continue to crash into my life with every blink of my eyes, every breath I take and every baby step I attempt to make each and every day. How I feel is incomprehensible to most... For the most part I feel inadequate, like I've failed miserably as a parent. The one most important thing we teach our children from the day they are born is that our love is unconditional. I feel like I've failed to do that.
Children deserve our unconditional love no matter what they do or how they live their lives. We don't have to like what they do, the choices they make, the mistakes they make... yes we can be disappointed but that doesn't mean we'll love them any less. And I believe somewhere in that equation I messed up with Austin. He made good and bad decisions in his life, but hey, so do I, so who am I to judge??? I am just a human being too and each choice we make in our day to day lives is a life lesson to learn and grow from.
In the big scheme of things does any of the bad choices our children make ever truly matter? NO, they are our children, we love them regardless of what they do, because no one can love a child more then their parent. At least that is how I feel about my children. I thought I had done everything possible to prove that to my kiddies, to be a better parent to my kids then my parents were to me. Yet as I look at the completed headstone about to be placed on my sons grave, I question my very being and ability to do that.
Sometimes the truth is ugly at that moment, and sometimes the truth is what we survivors are willing to tell you at that moment.
Sadly sometimes the true thoughts/feelings come spewing forth like I'm a possessed person vomiting the green split pea soup of the movies. This has a tendency to freak people out and make them worry. When I say I don't feel like moving forward or moving on its because there is a blackness within my heart that is so deep no light can penetrate it. No child should die before their parent. Not once in the last 30 years have I considered, thought of or attempted to self harm in any way shape or form. I've survived the suicidal death of my brother and lived through the destruction of my family as a child. And now as an adult and parent of a suicide victim I am surviving again and watching my own family, my children, going through hell. It sucked the first time, and you can bet it sucks even more the second time and I would never subject my family to a third. Once was enough, twice was overkill(sorry for the pun).
The "ability" or "choice" to truthfully voice/respond to these questions is a risky business indeed. I'm petty sure if we had health insurance l'd have been institutionalized by now...
But this is my life right now and onward I will keep going...
No comments:
Post a Comment