30. May, 2022
Empty space
This weekend I had to endure another scout camp without my beautiful redhead. I keep on searching amongst the children for his hair, then his face and trying to find the sound of his voice. Nothing...
Yes, I have video clips and voice messages he left behind, but it is not the same as hearing and seeing the child I loved so much. Everyday, when I wake up and walk into the kitchen and see his picture and unslept bed, I still cannot believe that lively, adventurous and loving boy is gone.
I know I am selfish in wanting him with me, instead of being heaven. I do absolutely believe in heaven, but I still want that boy with me. I cannot explain how it feels to have a piece of you ripped out. Only parents who have lost a child can know what I am feeling and experiencing.
It is more than emotions like anger and sadness. Although, sadness is no longer an emotion to me, it is dripping from my skin like a perfume applied. It is constant and lies waiting just under my skin. The anger is also always there. But I cannot be angry at anything, it was an accident. Chronic anger resentment. I do not want to resent, that causes bitterness. My husband ad I promised that we would not become bitter.
Yet, I am resenting that I get to live and my little boy, who could have changed the world with his personality, could do far greater things for God here on earth, had to die. I am just a plain Jane and not really good at anything specifically. I am not going to start changing the world at 47. So why Liam and not me? Can I trade places please, dear God?
No answer...
I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I have a supporting and loving husband, I have a wonderful, talented and intelligent son and fantastic family and friends. Liam will never get to live out his dreams and become the wonderful man I knew he would be. How unfair is that? Just as it is so unfair about the little boy in a coma who also strangled on the slide. He is still fighting for his life, but he will never be his old self.
What about the 19 kids gunned down by a teenager? What can possibly come out of that tragedy? Or the little baby who fell of the bed and died. There is nothing beautiful that can come from any death of a child. Well, I cannot see it yet. Why are there so many children dying at the moment? What is going on in this universe?
Jesus said: "Let the little children come to me...". Is he calling his angels back?
Nothing in my life makes sense anymore. Everything has changed. There is nothing that has not been touched in our lives as a family. We heading for two new firsts now in June. My husband and father-in-law's first Fathers Day without Liam on the 8th monthiversary of Liam's death. Then Raine's first birthday without his little brother. How do you make it better? You can't, it will be present - the empty space...
I know I am moaning, there are a lot of people worse off than me, but I cannot get around this pain and emptiness. I pray and I believe and nothing closes that space. They tell me it morphs over time and memories will become sweet. But now I just cannot believe that. How can these old memories become sweet knowing that we can never make new memories with Liam? He was the sunshine in our whole family. He was the peacemaker and the joke player. Now those roles are unoccupied forever.
I want to scream: "Give my Liam back, now!".
But then I have to drop my head in shame and say: "Not my will God, but yours...".
I am alone on this journey. I believe that Jesus walks beside me, but I am still alone and I feel lonely. Even though I have made friends with people who have lost children, I still walk this road alone - in misery.
Am I strong enough to live the rest of my life like this? I do not know. Do I want to know? No, I just need to get through the next minute.