Movin' On

"Get up in the morning and it's just another day..."
- "Movin' On", Bad Company

Predictably, my mood over the last couple of days, after Aaron's yahrzeit and the Chai Lifeline event this weekend, has once again been very low, just as it was after the unveiling the previous weekend. In looking back at what I wrote last week, I described these events as "purifying" of my misery and grief. I think when I first used those words, I myself wasn't quite sure what I meant by them. Now that this second intense weekend has passed, I have a better idea.

Dealing with a such devastating tragedy as the death of a child results in a grief that is multi-layered. At the core, of course, there's an intense sadness and sense of loss for the person who was taken away, the realization that you will never see him again in this life, the lost years that he might have had. But growing around that concentrated, untainted sorrow are a host of more toxic emotions; anger, rage, guilt, regret, hate. These feelings may seem to serve no positive purpose, but they are just as valid, just as real, just as much a typical part of the mourning process.

For me at least, the memorials of the past week have helped purge - or at least push away - much of those more harmful feelings. The unveiling and yahrzeit helped me better accept what God chose for Aaron, as impossible as it will be to ever truly understand it. The event launching the Chai Lifeline fund in Aaron's memory felt like a hugely positive and constructive response to our tragedy. All very good.

But while helping calm the anger and assuage the guilt, while somewhat stripping away those outer emotional layers, none of these past week's activities - OK, I'll be honest: nothing at all I have done in the past year - has really touched my core feelings of deep, immeasurable grief and heartache and just pure hurt. If anything, refining away the other bad feelings has made the core sorrow that much rawer and more acute.

But after a year of living like this, at least I am beginning to realize that nothing ever can or will make those feelings go away. I can hide from them, push them down enough to function reasonably well, most of the time. I can find comfort in the support of friends and even in the small joys of life. But the sadness never leaves.

Glen, a new blog-friend with whom I share this terrible bond of parental bereavement, has chosen to name his blog "Moving On". I am starting to see that this may well be the great challenge ahead of me. To be able to get out of bed each morning and be able to cope with the fact that it's the first day of the rest of my life - without Aaron in it. Right now, that seems like an unbearably bleak future. But what else can I do but try? Some that have been through it, assure me that it does, eventually, get better - at least a little.

That isn't quite enough yet to give me hope - but at least, it gives me hope that there's hope.

I do want to write more about the events themselves - but the emotions sidetracked me tonight, as they so often do lately. I'll try again tomorrow.

Thanks for listening, as always.