10. Oct, 2022
Almost one year
You left us today 356 days ago. Nearly a year, 9 more sleeps...
I have noticed that from your birthday and now nearly your death day, I have flashed back to that awful, black day.
This morning on my way to work a flashback started, when Daddy and Uncle Chris brought your covered, rigor mortise body from the forest to the morgue van. Just your feet were sticking out. They were wet and very blue, but it was still your feet. No parent should be carrying their dead teenager to a morgue van, see how that van is taking his body to a freezer. It is crude and horrific. I will forever remember those moments when I could think straight and remember some things of that day. They say the sting gets less, but I think it stays the same, you just get a thicker skin and you get used to the feeling of demolishment of you life.
I felt a nausea I have never experienced. It felt so "real", like it was playing before me now. I wanted to cut my skin open and climb out of this existence. I cannot do this, how am I going to do this, how will we be able to get through that day. That day I do not want to have it exist. That black day took my sunshine boy away, stole his life...
Then I have to breath deeply. I remind myself that that day is a year ago. Liam has long gone to heaven, whilst we struggle to get to terms with his death and our new normal. But we still feel like we want to celebrate and honour Liam's life on that day. It will be like throwing a zap sign to that day - "We are still celebrating a beautiful young life!" - take that 19 October!
I worry about Raine. His matric exam starts the next day and he is writing Advanced Programme in Maths, both papers on the 20th. How will his mood be and his concentration and his heart? I wish we could ask the IEB if they can move that exam just one or two days forward. Just give Raine some space to breath and grief. I am so very worried about my Raine.
What emotions am I going to see on my husband's face that morning, when we wake up. Will I wake up again, because he has to get up to let the cry out that he hides during the day? Will I feel his shoulder shake? When I hug him, will I feel and taste the tears as it streams across his face.
What about Liam's grandparents? How are they going to get through that day? Will grandad be able to just take a breath and remember Liam without his heart breaking in front of me? The grandmothers, ae they going to get 10 years older on that day?
Am I going to watch the CCTV footage of Liam's last moments, am I going to listen to the voice notes he left me everyday? Am I going to get the nerve to pack his remaining clothes up and donate them to a good cause? Will I have the courage to unpack his schoolbag? Will I look at his brain charts for last year's Geography exams he made that afternoon?
All our family and friends are going to remember and be sad for us, perhaps they will pray that we get through that day.
What are Liam's friends going to be doing that day? Will they remember that he died that day? I hope they do not remember. Children should not bury a friend...
I really wish I can just get a shot that would make me sleep though that day! I do not want to do that freakish day. I am scared, anxious and sick to my stomach, thinking, wondering, hating and being angry...
No, I cannot! I promised Liam...