{"id":12242,"date":"2013-08-06T12:16:13","date_gmt":"2013-08-06T19:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/momservations.wordpress.com\/?p=12242"},"modified":"2013-08-06T12:16:13","modified_gmt":"2013-08-06T19:16:13","slug":"floaties-in-an-ocean-of-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/momservations.com\/index.php\/2013\/08\/06\/floaties-in-an-ocean-of-grief\/","title":{"rendered":"Floaties in an Ocean of Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Momservation:<\/b> No one has a child to spare.<\/p>\n

\u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u263a<\/p>\n

I really wanted to be business as usual today: whine about the trials of parenting, share a funny anecdote, throw together a tips list, and in the process do some light Kardashian bashing.<\/p>\n

I wanted to talk about this being our last full week of summer, of my grand adventure of living it like a 12 year-old, of gladly choosing the indignity and discomfort of a mammogram over back-to-school shopping with a picky teenager.<\/p>\n

But my heart is still heavy. I can\u2019t stop aching for the loss of Natalie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was too close. Too scary to have a parent\u2019s worst nightmare play out in front of us, unable to turn the channel, turn the page, not click on someone else\u2019s tragic story so we didn\u2019t have to be forced to fathom it.<\/p>\n

It is all the more heart wrenching that if I\u2019m struggling to find meaning and motivation in the simplest of tasks after losing such a precious, vibrant, young life\u2014for me, someone to whom Natalie and her family were simply a familiar face in the community\u2014I imagine what her family and close friends are going through and I have to stop and cry.<\/p>\n

Because I know what they\u2019re going through. Even though it\u2019s been 30 years this August since my six year-old sister, Sommar\u2019s, death in a terrible accident\u2014the heartache associated with the death of a child can always be accessed.<\/p>\n

\"Sommar,<\/a>
Sommar, age 6<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The pain is searing. It is inescapable. It feels unbearable. The only thing that promises to heal it is time\u2014and time becomes clogged sands in an hourglass.<\/p>\n

So now, now that Natalie\u2019s family is still counting the minutes since she\u2019s been gone; her friends counting the days left to school because they are afraid of facing a school room with her empty chair; her community counting every hug they give their own children; the question becomes:<\/p>\n

How do you survive it? How does one survive the loss of a child?<\/p>\n

You ask an expert on grief\u2014someone who has lost and child and not just survived it, but thrives despite the unnatural order of having to bury your child.<\/p>\n

For me, that is my mother.<\/p>\n

If you ask my mom, Jan, how to survive such unfathomable grief she\u2019ll tell you: \u201cYou just do. I can\u2019t give anyone a timetable, and I won\u2019t\u2014especially to those who are still counting the loss in minutes, hours, days. It would leave them devoid of hope if I told them how long it took me to break the surface of my grief.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what losing a child feels like. It\u2019s like sinking to the bottom of the deepest ocean-\u2014an ocean of grief. And you would stay there, because you have no motivation to do anything else. No strength to try and save yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you do eventually rise to the surface because you have these floaties\u2014the floaties are the people and things that attach to you and won\u2019t let you drown in your own sorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my mom\u2019s list of floaties that can save you from drowning in an ocean of grief:<\/p>\n