“Time heals all wounds”…  If I had a penny for every time someone has told me that I would most certainly be very wealthy right now.  I certainly do not know who was the first to utter those words, but I would be willing to wager my unseen earnings that the person who coined that phrase did not lose a child.  Two years and four months after losing my little boy I can most assuredly state that my wounds are not healed.  Not only are they not healed, but in many ways the wound is just a fresh as it was on that fall day.  I still find my breath taken away by random visions of my little boy’s motionless body floating in that pond.  Those images have no no periodicity that I can discern which makes their unwelcomed visits all the more disturbing.  Time has not eased the intensity of the ache that manifests as a persistent pressure in my chest that boils up towards my jaw, always threatening to erupt, but never quite reaching the critical mass necessary to do so.

That ache that feels so palpable to me is apparently undetectable to most everyone else; an invisible wound that only people who have felt this loss can comprehend.  It feels so exclusionary to say this, but it’s true… the only people who can understand the turmoil that child loss creates in your soul are others who have lost a child themselves.  The death of a child places us in an fraternity that we never wanted to be a part of – and can never, ever cancel our membership in.  The dues are paid on a daily basis, with no hope of ever remunerating the full price of admission.  The more I speak to parents who have lost children, the more I understand that no matter how much time passes, the pain is always there – It never, ever leaves.  The river of time cannot wash this pain away – at least not all of it.

Parents who lose a child always experience the loss.  People often feel the urge to put that loss in the past tense, but those of us who know the pain can truly understand why it should always be placed in the present.  More than two years after losing Rees we are still experiencing it – and will continue to, in perpetuity, because losing a child robs you of your future.  That is why child loss hurts so much.  Your children are the promise of life after your inevitable death.  Our children are the present, tangible, manifestation of our eternal lives.  The loss of a child is the loss of life eternal…

Eternity is a long time.  Actually, it’s the longest time.   Almost every parent that I have spoken to that has lost a child has pointed out that time itself becomes something of an adversary to them.  To understand the adversary, you must understand its nature – and time has a very distinct nature.  Time flows like a river, with the past left in your wake and the future shrouded in a mist that obscures the destination.  The only part of the river we can navigate are the waters we are in at the present.  From our vantage point in the present we can see our wake and anticipate the future, but we are absolutely powerless to affect either. Therein lies the ultimate, 3 pronged, cruelty of time:  First, while we can see the wake of times past we cannot go in reverse to undo that terrible moment.  Second, the essence of time makes you equally as powerless to speed up it’s flow so that you can put more distance between your present and that awful moment.  Third, here in the present,  you can see the empty spot on your raft of life that should be occupied by your child.  The empty seat hurts the most.  No matter where you look, aft, stern, port or bow that empty seat is always right there and there is nothing you can do to avoid it.

It would be nice if you could simply look past that empty spot, but you can’t.   The only option is to start to embrace time and experience everything you need to experience.  Feel every feeling that pulses through you.  Don’t suppress the pain, or the sadness… Rather let it flow through you and you will find that the river of time will erode away the edges of the wound, softening it, diminishing it. The river of time will gradually slow the ebb and flow of the pain to a point where you can navigate through the troubled waters of life with confidence.  It took me a while to figure this out.  My first instinct was to try and damn up the river – and that was the mistake I made.

You can’t stem the flow of time, or the pain it carries with it.  When you try, the damn you create merely holds it until it reaches it’s breaking point and bursts through. When that damn bursts there is nothing you can do about the collateral damage it inevitably causes, which only then creates more pain.  Left to this, a vicious cycle keeps going, destroying you – and maybe those around you in the process.  There is only one way, at least that I have found, that can stop the cycle: Feeling everything.  When that pain hits you, let it flow through you.  If you feel like screaming, scream!  If you have an urge to punch something, do it (I punch and scream into a pillow – two for one!).  I found ways to let the pain flow creatively too.  I started to write.  I started this blog, which started a movement in Rees’ name, which put my wife and I on a path we would have never have guessed we would find ourselves…

Through it all I made sure to feel that pain, get to know it, and lay claim to it.  A friend of mine, who is an author and has experienced a similar loss, said that his pain made him put up a wall to try and block it.  He realized that the wall was never good at holding it back, so he decided to push the wall over and turn it into a raft.  That is what you need to do in the case of child loss.  Turn that wall you want to put up into a raft and ride it out.  The river runs forever and given time, it will erode away that intense pain to a more manageable one.

I can honestly say that my waters are calmer now, but the ride and it’s pain keeps going.  I still have those moments where the pain feels fresh and new.  The sharp edges of my pain have yet to erode away completely.  I know it will never go away completely, but that is understandable… afterall it was borne out of the purest love there is.  The pain and my love for Rees are inexorably tied together.  Since my love for him will never die, neither will the hurt.  I think the key to appreciating my present more is learning how to reconcile that dichotomy.  The key is accepting you can’t alter the flow of the river, you can only float along with it and go wherever it takes you.  I still see that awful moment in the wake of my journey – but every day gets me closer to where I want to go and further from that moment.   I know we will be together again one day. Hope is knowing that each day brings me a little closer to my little boy, even though time takes me further away. Happiness is trying to enjoy the ride, one little piece at time…

How can I not enjoy the ride with this little girl by my side?