2013 started
out gray. 2012 ended the same way. For most of the last week the skies have been
heavy, bloated, on the verge of crying.
I know this feeling. I spent a
good portion of last year feeling this way.
I don’t like
to hear someone say “This day can’t be over soon enough!” or “I wish it was
Friday already!”. Ask my son how many
times he’s heard me say “Don’t wish your life away!”.
And yet, as
I sit at my desk watching the first few drops of rain ping one leaf at a time
on their way down, I am aware of a sense of relief that a new year has begun,
that the old one is finished, and that we’ve careened past yet another
milestone no more damaged than we were going in. And, I am grateful.
Thanksgiving
was different; not bad, not difficult, just different. Christmas was different, too…a little sadder,
and angry, but not in a fierce way. Angry
in a wistful way. Wistful as in “Isn’t
it a shame he chose not to be here?”
Because, he did. Trey chose not
to have Christmas with us. And we know
how to do Christmas! We have great
Christmases! I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to be here…
There are
lots of things I don’t understand.
I don’t
understand why a general practitioner happily rewrites a middle-aged woman’s Zoloft
prescription for months on end, but when that same woman suggests her
adolescent son might also benefit from anti-depressants, he refuses without
listening and looks at her as though she should be ashamed.
I don’t
understand a therapist who, after several unsuccessful attempts at getting an
obviously troubled teenager to open up, dismisses his mother with “You’re
wasting your money and my time. Don’t
bring him back until he’s willing to talk.”, or a high school counselor who,
upon being alerted by a classmate that a student is cutting himself, shakes her
head at the parent saying “We simply can’t have that here.”, as though mental
illness is somehow catching and another kid will see his scars and think them
cool and before you know it everyone is cutting.
Anyone who tells you mental illness carries no
stigma never tried to get help for a disturbed child.
I do
understand, though, the horror inherent in the realization that the
weapon-wielding monster might have been my son and the ever-present fear that the
next time he might not be pulled over before crossing the center line.
My son is
dead but he didn’t take anyone with him.
I understand that. And, I am
grateful.
I am told
that the black hole in my memory where last January and most of February used
to be is normal. I likened the space to
a blank chalkboard when describing it to my therapist who agreed that the missing
chunk of time may, indeed, contribute to my feeling that every moment since is
a do-over.
In one of
those moments, several weeks after I began seeing her, I realized parts of me I
hadn’t missed are back. My wounds are healing,
as all wounds do, by reclamation. The “skin”
has grown back, not as new skin but as a continuation of the old, only better,
stronger, scarred and thus resilient. I like
her, the woman I am becoming; the one I was before but newer, stronger, with a
chance to be better.
That is his
gift.
He always
did that. He always brought me gifts. From the time he was very small, if he went
outside, he came back in with pockets full of rocks and handfuls of dandelion
heads. He was sure every rock was a
gem. And they were. I kept them all.
At
Thanksgiving last year he brought me bird’s nests to add to my collection. He frequently came across them in his work and
saved them for me. Some were square, as
though formed inside a box. Some were
round and tiny. And one had parts of
blue eggshell inside.
And he wrote
me notes like the one I found a few weeks ago while cleaning out a file
cabinet.
Thank you so much from all of
us. Without you I/we would be
nothing. In my whole 21 years you have
never let me down. You are absolutely
without question the best mom in the world. I love all you guys with all my
heart.
Thank you.
Love, Trey
© Copyright 2007-2013 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved
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