My grief for Ryan is felt with every experience, good and bad. Last week I gained a new granddaughter, and I am so overcome with the abundance of love I have for her. I can’t stop wondering how I can feel so much love with such a broken heart. 

As I ponder the last 12 months and the loss of my closest friend’s son, one of my camping buddies, and my father, my heart aches. My losses are never grieved individually, I can’t think about any loss without including my son with it. I’m not sure anyone can comprehend the extent of mixed emotions unless you too are a grieving parent. I survive life’s frailty and I love deeper because of it, but it doesn’t ease the pain, ever.

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” – Anne Lamott

This week would mark Ryan’s 35th birthday. It’s easy for me to still think of him being older than my other kids. He will always be their big brother. 

I imagine if he was still alive, he would definitely be running his own business and be wealthy. He had great ambition. The rest of it is harder to imagine.  It’s not easy for me to think about how he would look as he aged or if he would have a family of his own.

As a parent of adult children, we long for those memories of when our kids were young. As a parent of a deceased child, those memories hold so much more meaning. I have always loved watching my children grow and mature. I appreciate and cherish each stage of their lives. It wasn’t just Ryan who was robbed of his future. With Ryan’s life ending in his early twenties, I was robbed of my future as his mother. It leaves a very dark hole in my heart and pains me daily. 

Nearly 11 years later, I still am not sure how I will survive this pain. It is as much of a loss today as it was the first day. I don’t get used to being without him. He is my baby, my son, my hero, my friend. I look for him constantly.

“Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face – I know it’s an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.” – Nicholas Sparks ‘Message In A Bottle’

I look for signs from him constantly. I try to have conversations with him and imagine how he would reply. I try to pretend he just lives far away, in another town and is still alive. But he doesn’t. The only time I hear his voice is watching videos. I want to “learn to dance with the limp” as Anne Lamott puts it, but for now, maybe I’m still learning to walk. 

Memorial Weekend is harder for me than the date of his death. Memorial Weekend represents his birth, his life. It was the last weekend we spent with him together as a family. The proudest I had ever been of our family. We had it all. In my eyes we were perfect and I could ask for nothing more.

Now, no matter how wonderful life may get, no matter the amazing blessings given to me, there will always be Ryan missing. I can accept the loss of my friends, nieces, even my sister, and father, but not my son. Not my Ry Pie! 

I am attaching the links to two blogs I wrote last year at this time. I have read them again and hope you will too.

“There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud and to know that the words have been heard.” – Victoria Alexander