Debilitating Grief

July 31, 2024 9:00AM

I’m lying in bed and can barely move. I just can’t get up.

I’ve experienced grief before with the passing of both parents in 1999 and 2017, respectively so grief isn’t new for me. I was able to endure those painful times quite well considering the circumstances, but not this time around. Maybe it’s because my mom and dad were both very sick, and I had time to prepare. Maybe it’s because I was able to say my goodbyes before I watched them draw their final breaths. Maybe it’s because it was the proper order of things. We as children expect our parents to go before us.

This grief is different.

This is my son, and he was murdered.

This grief is excruciating.

This grief is debilitating.

My eyes well up with tears and they begin to roll down my cheeks. I keep shaking my head. I still can’t believe John is dead.

God, please help me.

I need God’s help more than ever today because it’s going to be one of the most difficult days of my life; we have to meet with the funeral home this afternoon.

Never in a million years would I think I’d be going to speak to a funeral home to discuss my child’s funeral service.

This is backwards; it’s out of order.

It’s not the way things should be.

I shouldn’t be burying my son. He should be burying me.

It’s a huge struggle but I finally sit up. I have to get moving because we need to stop by the grocery store before meeting with the funeral home.

So, I get out of bed and slowly put one foot in front of the other.

I made it to the grocery store with my sister to pick up paper products for the tons of food dropped off by my kindhearted family and friends. I was still in a dazed state, but luckily my sister was here to help me. So much needed to be done and I could barely put a sentence together.

I looked around at everyone going about their usual day. Women zipping up and down aisles tossing food in their carts for tonight’s dinner, children begging mothers if they could pleeeeasee have cereal loaded with sugar and men struggling to find the items their wives sent them to the store to get.

I looked around with anger because I wanted scream to the world, “My son is dead! How can you just go on living?”

I grabbed a few stacks of paper plates, cups and plastic silverware and headed to the check-out line. My sister was still shopping for a few other items she wanted but I didn’t want to wait. All I wanted to do was get in line, pay for my things and get to the car before I busted out crying… again.