Moving On

I’m tired of being told that I should “move on” or that I’m using the loss of my boys to “get attention”. I remember them. I love them. I miss them. And I talk about them. If that makes you uncomfortable, perhaps you should examine why you are feeling that way, instead of trying to make me take the blame for your discomfort.

My son and his 2 little boys were brutally murdered in 2007 by my daughter-in-law. The trial process took 5 years! How do you heal during that? When you keep learning terrible things for the first time in public? When for 3 whole days they argue in court about the stomach contents of a 3-year-old? When you are told that you son’s fingers and hands were severed as he tried to defend himself? Things will never be the same for me. My life is clearly divided into before and after. That doesn’t mean that I won’t move forward in life. Or that I can’t find new meaning and a new normal for me.

I will never ever forget. I think of them every day, and sometimes it’s hard to pass significant days and not feel sadness for what might have been. My grandson, Devon, had just finished first grade when he was smothered by his mother. His friends just finished their first year of high school this month. I am missing that experience as I miss him. As I miss all three of them. There is nothing wrong or unhealthy in that.

If your child was picked to colonize a distant planet, and you hadn’t seen or spoken with him/her for seven years, wouldn’t you still love and miss that child? Even as you continue with your own life, and find a new place for yourself in the world? Of course you would. Any parent would. That is right and natural. Continuing to remember your child doesn’t mean you are refusing to heal.