Triggers

Yesterday my best friend and I went to the cemetery.  One week from tomorrow will be my Jay's birthday on Halloween.  We planted mums and left pumpkins.  While this is hard on me; I know this is hard for her too.  She loves my boys as her own.  She stops shoveling and stares off and says  "this doesn't feel real - we shouldn't be doing this."  She is right it feels so unfair; I am taking care of my son's gravesite.   It should be the other way around; children are not supposed to predecease their parents. TRIGGERS!!!

Triggers are like sucker punches to the stomach.  A reminder either gentle or blatant that our child is no longer here.  For me it takes on so many forms; the accident site, his beautiful smile on his gravestone,  his favorite music, cheese balls, peanut butter and graham crackers or the smell of the body wash he used etc etc.  This week it is his birthday. In addition, all the Halloween decorations and fanfare don't make it any easier for me to push it aside.

 We in grief want to believe that once we move beyond a certain point in our journey or after we have practiced many steps of acceptance, that the “new normal” (life) that we all hear about (in early grief) will change us so that we will no longer be as effected by those triggers as we were in our early grief.  But I recognized that I am still human, still a parent and I still am affected by my triggers. And I know these feelings can and will be with us forever. These trigger situations will continue to occur even when we think we are prepared and are practicing our "new normal" life. So I pray that I have the courage to get through those times when these triggers make my journey of grief even harder . God Bless All Grieving Parents.

Excerpt from my Memory Book; Jason's Birthday 10/31/1984