Living in After

October 20, 2019

5 min read

This week was four months since our move from Before to After. Four months since Jackson stopped walking this earth with us. Four months worth of days when I have felt dumbstruck that the world hasn’t stopped. How could the world not stop? How is it possible that people are just out getting coffee or buying toilet paper at the grocery store? How is it possible that I still have to go to work or pay bills or feed the dog? How is it possible there is air enough for all of us to breathe, and the earth continues to spin without his sweet smile? How is it possible that people still ride motorcycles, or that traffic still goes through the intersection where his life ended?

Tattoo of black script of Jackson above an 8 ball with the dates 1997-2019 beneath
Tattoo of black script of Jackson above an 8 ball with the dates 1997-2019 beneath

I feel like I should be wearing a scarlet letter. Or a black letter. A large G for grief, or maybe an M for mourning. An indication to all those I come in contact with throughout the day to give me a wide berth. To be gentle with me. To be kind. We don’t give enough time or space for grief in our culture. We don’t recognize the true impact, or the time needed, to become well enough again to function in the world. I am not me anymore. I may look the same, but I am not. I walk in the world with a heart so shattered, the slivers so small, that no amount of time or grieving will truly bring it back to whole. How could I ever be the same with him not here? Why would I want to be? Losing him, like loving him, has profoundly changed me.

There is a strange juxtaposition with the desire to wear a letter indicating my grief. Simultaneously, I feel a stigma being the mother whose child has died. Loss impacts relationships – those closest and those in the outer circles of your life. Someone asked me recently if I have been surprised by anyone, by how they’ve behaved in response to Jackson’s death. The answer is yes. Absolutely. And no, not really, as grief should not be experienced through the lens of expectation. I have friends, family members, and even some strangers who have shown up in ways that have truly saved me. People who are able to sit with me and hold a space for this grief for a time. On a recent trip, a cab driver taking me from the airport to my hotel in D.C. asked if I was okay, if something happened, because I was hit by a wave of grief while staring out the window of his back seat. I told him the truth, and he told me about his daughter who is 22. And he cried with me. I felt such deep gratitude when I saw him wiping his eyes in the rearview mirror as we navigated D.C. afternoon traffic.

I don’t think this grief would be survivable in isolation. And all support matters. I feel strongly that each prayer, each kind thought, each well-wish is a thread in the net that is holding me – and Eiseley – up. That it is the full spectrum of support, from those who can sit with me and cry to those who text me every few weeks to check in, that is allowing me to breathe for another moment, another day. Expectation that anyone will show up a certain way is unfair, really. Grief is scary. And for some, just too much to be around. I am grateful to all who show up in whatever way they can. I am also very aware that the relationships that I had in Before are not the same relationships in After. Friendship is defined differently; time with people is prioritized differently. There are those who are walking this journey with me, those who are watching from the sidelines cheering occasionally, and those who left or never joined the crowd.

People say things to me about not being able to imagine what I am going through. And, of course, that is true. I could not really have imagined this before, much like I couldn’t really imagine how profoundly I would love him before he was born. The true breadth and depth and wonder of my love for him couldn’t be felt until that first moment he was in my arms. I remember when he was a baby having a strange moment of clarity and thinking, ‘yeah, I could kill someone.’ Momma bear! Loving your child is infinite. It is a love without condition or boundaries. It is a love that fills your heart so full it hurts.

The missing is felt with equal measure. The missing is as infinite as the love. I couldn’t have known that in Before. I could imagine – any parents greatest fear – I could think about it, but I could not know. In After, I live in the knowing.

On Mother’s Day this year, just weeks before he died, Jackson and I had a long phone conversation. One of those lovely conversations that flows easily – no intended topic or reason for chatting. No destination. We talked a bit about his upcoming 22nd birthday and his actual birthday. I shared my memories of that first summer with him after he was born, spending hours just sitting on the deck looking into his sweet little face and falling so in love with him. I am so grateful I told him that.

Living in After means having to hold on to memories in a different way. They are precious and finite. Each holds more weight. And, they are the only way to visit Before.

On a recent walk with some friends, one was lamenting about how challenging her daughter has been all summer, about how she and her husband couldn’t wait for her to go back to college. All I could think was how I would give anything, ANYTHING, to have back my worst day with Jackson. Because on the worst day, in the lowest moment, there is still possibility. There is still tomorrow. In death, there is no chance for a different outcome. No possibility for some new experience. Done. In After, the door is always shut.

HELLO?! Jackson is dead! My son died! Stop what you are doing!

But that isn’t how it works. Life, apparently, goes on.

Living in After is strange. The world seems the same – looks the same, but there is a sense of unrealness to it. Like being in Stepford and all is not as it appears. There is a heaviness to the air, a haze that covers everything. Each morning is a bit like Groundhog’s Day. For a nano second, life is as it should be; I am a mother with two sons. But in the length of an inhale, the new reality settles in once again. I am a mother with two sons; one just doesn’t live here anymore. He lives in Before. And, I so miss living in Before with him – all of it – from sleepless nights of worry, arguments, piles of unwashed dishes, and college tuition to the sweetest notes written in my birthday cards and ‘I love you’ at the end of our calls. I miss living where Jackson was in present tense.

a tattoo of the letters J.R. that look like cracked stone on the arm of a man
a tattoo of the letters J.R. that look like cracked stone on the arm of a man