During the past few years of attending group meetings, and many one-on-one meetings with other bereaved parents, I have heard a lot of parents say that they want to be reunited with their lost children. The sooner the better, regardless of anything, they just want to be with their lost child again. I hear this and it hurts. It truly causes such an emotional conflict within myself that I can’t forget it. Of course I want to be with Andrew again (and for those who do not believe in the afterlife, the concept of heaven, please forgive this part); I want to hold him, I want to talk to him, I want to tell him that I still and have always loved him. I want to tell him so many things that I will never be able to. It hurts me to my soul to not be with him and not have him to hold.

Who knew he would change my life so much, both when he arrived, and when we lost him.

We have all heard of parents who have died of a broken heart and are now with their lost children. We have heard this within our own groups, within our extended friends, and in the recent news. There are also parents who have chosen to not take care of themselves medically or emotionally after their children have passed on, in the hopes of meeting an early demise. Very upsetting and disturbing.

These parents have stopped living their lives. For all intents and purposes, they are no longer alive. They are already dead – they just don’t know it.

I have thought about this a lot lately. Partially because of the news that surrounds us, as well as experiencing this phenomenon with a couple of close bereaved parents. Where do my thoughts lead me? My determination? I have concluded that I must live. That I want to live. No matter what we have experienced with the loss of our children, no matter how bad we feel, no matter how much life might suck in this moment, I know that my dear beloved Andrew wants me to live. He wants me to be with our family, he wants me to enjoy my life and experience the things that he never will. He wants me to be there for Nicole, to enjoy her life with her and watch her grow. He wants me to be here with Dorothy, to love and protect her for as long as I can. He wants me to be here for me, knowing I have more to give. He knows, as do I, that he will be there for me one day when I get to wherever he is, no matter how long it takes me to get there. But not now.

Although Andrew’s time with us is over and his work here on earth has been completed, my work here on earth is not done yet. And my point is, neither is yours – my readers, my friends, and mostly, other bereaved parents. I am publishing my book soon, and I know that my writings have helped many other bereaved parents and families. Maybe that is my cause, my work that has not yet been completed. Maybe that is what Andrew’s death has driven me to do, to speak for others who cannot express themselves, to help other people understand what we are going through, to be a voice in the ear of other parents. They are working hard; to stop drug addiction, to make the streets safer, or to raise thousands of dollars for targeted medical research. These are the missions of our lives now. It is not what we planned for, not what we wanted, and not what we had hoped for, but it is the direct result of our children being taken from us. Hopefully our actions and dedication can prevent other parents from feeling the pain we do every day.

For those of you who miss your children, and I know we all do; for those who are lost without them, and we all are; for those who want to be reunited so much and hold them again … think about your life. Think about what your son or daughter would want you to do. They don’t want us to suffer. They don’t want us to be in pain or be among the living dead while here on earth.

They want our lives to have meaning. They want their memories to drive us to do something significant. No matter how hard that might be, to live, it is what they want for us. Even if the most significant thing we can do right now is to get out of bed every day and breathe – that is better than not getting out of bed.

I wish you peace, and hope you find that inner path that is waiting for you. It is the path your child has laid out for you, that we must find it in our hearts and souls.

New Years Day, a new, insignificant, but much touted starting point of time for most. Everyone changes calendars, starts their annual spending accounts over, hangs out with their families, and the new year begins. We all measure time; for good or bad, we do.  We all measure our lives based on some random (or maybe scientific) timeline that started thousands of years ago. We have days, weeks, months, years – and for some, decades. In the beginning we use hours and days, we move on to months and years at some point, and then decades as we approach some point in our lives.

Ask someone how old they are, that measurement from the day they were born until their last birthday, and everyone knows it. How long have you been married? How long have you worked there? How long ago did  you graduate? And everyone knows the answers to these questions. They all know so many dates, and how long it’s been. Everyone measures their lives against some, or several, events. For the most part, happy points on that long line of life.

But with us, as with many other, it is different.

As Cynthia said a few weeks ago – life started over when she lost her son. It is the only important day, the only date that really matters anymore.  There are plenty of other dates, but this one changed everything. Everything is measured from that day on – and will be from now on, for the rest of her life, as well as for the rest of our lives.

Our timeline has a new starting point now. We no longer measure how old we are or how long we have been married – time frames that we were so proud of before. When we graduated school or how long we have worked at our current job just don’t have that sense of importance anymore. We really only keep track of one important date – when we lost our child. Everything is still measured, time keeps moving on, but we just don’t seem to care about those dates anymore. there is really only one date now.

Ask any bereaved parent “how long has it been?” Before you can even finish the sentence they have blurted out sixteen months, or three years, or seven years, or six weeks. We don’t have to think about it, we don’t have to calculate it, it is just there, all the time, on the tips of our tongues and in the forefront of our minds.

it is such a tragic day, such a tragic thing that has happened, that nothing else is as important to us – life started over on that day. Something that we loved beyond belief, someone that came from us, someone who was part of our being – was taken away.

For those of us who are lucky enough to have one or two or even three other children, or blessed with several grandchildren, we of course know their birthdays, and their special dates. But, more importantly, we know exactly how old they were when we lost our child. You could hear us say “Jack was fifteen when he lost his brother, he is now, uh…twenty one.” We know how old they were, but have to think about how old they are now.

Life also started over because we are such different people than we were before. Such a drastic change in our lives, such a shift in who we have become, this warrants a new start date. The path that we are on now, the path that fate has put us on, has a mile marker 0 where we our new journey began. Every day, every week, every year, we go further down that path, but we are never far from that mile marker 0. It is always fresh in our minds and in our hearts, and never further than a teardrop away.

Yes, we go on. Yes we get older. Yes, we remember all the good times before that date, and cherish them. But for us, especially us, our lives started over when someone was taken from us.