With the arrival of August, the steady, yet rapid peeling off of the days invariably signals the countdown to an anniversary that always fills me with dread.
Tomorrow it will be exactly nine years since Kieran, the older of my sons, took his life.
For others, if they’re even aware of it, the anniversary is probably uncomfortable and perhaps even embarrassing. After all, what can anyone really say after nine years? Maybe they’re thinking that it’s simply time for me to get over it. Or maybe the discomfort they often appear to feel is caused by their innate knowledge, even if they’ve never experienced it themselves, that a parent never “gets over” the death of his or her child. An anniversary is a reminder that time is passing and yet in the case of child loss the grief neither fades nor lessens. Instead, it must be carried like the unbearable, unmentionable burden it is until the day of one’s own death.
I remember Kieran calling from Ft. Bragg, where he was stationed at the time, around mid-July 2010, to wish me a happy birthday. The call may very well have been our last—I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know for sure—coming, as it did, approximately six weeks before he took his life. Obviously, I had no inkling of what was about to happen. Or did I?
As best I remember, our conversation was brief, which, in retrospect, seemed to hint at what was to come. (Even at the time, after hanging up, I remember saying to myself, Why did he want to get off the phone so quickly? Something must be wrong.)
Exhausted—I’ll admit—by my then twenty-two-year-old son, as well as by the years of disappointments and frustrations, was I allowing my injured feelings at the time to override my mother’s intuition, which, if operating correctly, should have told me quite clearly that I needed to take some kind of action. But what kind, exactly? What could I have done? Gone to Ft. Bragg and interfered mightily in my son’s life?
From what I remember, the phone call wasn’t unpleasant so much as it was vaguely unsatisfactory. Even though I feel certain that not so much as a single harsh word passed between us, I wish I’d been more loving, more caring during that phone call, especially since I can’t remember with absolute clarity ever speaking to my son again. This is the guilt that haunts many of us who are left behind following a death, and especially a suicide. But isn’t there a valuable lesson here, too, which is that shouldn’t each and every one of us, whether a major tragedy has touched our lives or not, treat our daily interactions, and especially those with our closest loved ones, as if they might be our last, taking absolutely nothing for granted?
Of course we should, but is living like this truly possible? I’d love to hear what you think.
My heartfelt wish for you I never when we met at dreamed we would share suicide both.
I have a close friend lost her son Lt Alec Turnbull to suicide. I would think you would have a support for each other. Alec died Jan 5 2017. His mon is Betsy Turnbull. I will email your web page to Betsy and let ya’ll go?from there.
I am throwing bread on the waters.
Marjorie Thomson on August 28, 2019 at 12:34 am
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Would I give some of my 88 years to have a little more time to tell my parents “goodby”, to sleep next to my husband once more, to tell my grandson “I am proud of you”; of course I would. Since that cannot be; to the survivors I can say” I love you”and am so proud of each one of you”.
Oh Peggy, I understand, you never “get over” losing a child. People don’t get it, they expect you to move on and though you try, you are plagued with what ifs. In my case, why didn’t I encourage my son to get tested earlier. How do you do that with an adult son ? I tell myself I would rather have had him and lost him rather than never having him at all. Memories are bittersweet. In my case I get no comfort from my husband due to his dementia. My two sons are busy with their own families and I don’t want to be a burden to them. I have my faith. Should that be enough? Am I not faithful enough? I try to be strong.
Friends really don’t want to hear about it, so I try to be cheerful in spite of how I really feel. Pretend you are happy when you are blue!
Peggy, we belong to a club no one wants to join; Mother’s who have lost adult sons. We go on loving…..Arlene
Peggy – Expressions from deep within your heart. Thank you for sharing. Your point is well made to strive to live our lives and our interactions with others as if they might be our last, but I also know that you love Kieran deeply and that phone call on your birthday, probably went better than you are remembering. Even if you had some hint that he got off the phone too quickly, there was no way you could have prevented what you could not have predicted would happen. Being where he was and the daily grind of his routine then, it would not have been unusual for him to have gotten off the phone quickly to get back to his daily routine. I know that Kieran knew how much he was loved and that you would (and did) try to move heaven and earth for him. I also know how deeply he loved you.