Once the funeral was over, the house no longer full of visitors, and the constant stream of casserole deliveries dwindled to a trickle; once my husband had gone back to work, the children back to school, and my family all boarded their planes eastward, I was left alone to get on with things. Life, routine, errands, school, grocery shopping, returning library books. But here’s the thing. On top of all those other emotions, a new one reared its ugly head. Fear. Of going out into the community – the school, the library, the grocery store. Fear of the stares, the whispers, the questions. Fear of YOU. Fear of what you were thinking about me and saying about me behind my back. Because I know you had all those same doubts I did. “What if she hadn’t…” “If only she had…” “Why didn’t she just…”. And I lived in fear that you would have the balls to walk up to me and lay all that blame right at my feet in the middle of the produce aisle or the juniour fiction section. You didn’t. You kept whatever you had to say to yourself, or in close enough circles that it never got back to me. Thank God. Because I couldn’t deal with your blame on top of what I was putting on myself. My shoulders couldn’t have handled that extra burden. It would have broken me.
But I still knew you were out there and I was afraid of you. It took me a long time to come to terms with that fear and let it go, to move on and not worry about you and what you thought. These days I don’t think about you much at all. I’m too busy worrying about me, and trying to extend a little of the grace I give so freely to others, to my own self.
If there’s anything I’m grateful for in that whole awful time it’s that while our son’s death was the most heart breaking, tragic thing my husband and I ever had to experience, while our girls were devastated and confused; in the days of 24 hour news cycle, blog posts and social-freaking-media, a little baby boy dying from SIDS caused not a blip in the radar. It was sad, certainly, but not newsworthy. Thank God. This meant we were largely in control of our family’s story. We chose who we shared with, and and exactly how much we were comfortable sharing. I know there were rumors and likely speculation behind the privacy of closed doors, and there was judgement. I know that. But I didn’t have to log on to Facebook, Twitter, or a national news site and see stories about our family. I didn’t have to see the vitriol and hatred people feel free to unleash from behind the anonymity of their keyboards. I didn’t have to see thousands of people who didn’t know anything more than a ten second sound bite about our family, lay all their hate, judgement, blame and shame squarely at my virtual feet. Thank. God.
I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to lose your child to a wild alligator as they splash close to your feet on a family vacation, or to turn away for a second and find your child has fallen into the gorilla enclosure, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what it’s like to hold that guilt on your heart. I know the weight of responsibility, the weight of “why didn’t I…”. I know that you can spew all the blame and scorn you want onto those parents via the Internet, and it won’t come close to being as heavy as the blame they hold on their own hearts. But I know every little comment, every snide remark, every single “well what did she expect…” adds another little stone, another little weight onto that grieving parent’s already unbearably heavy heart. I also know that every little gesture of kindness, support or compassion, lifts just the tiniest bit of the burden. Just the smallest comment or gesture of grace can ease the heavy, heavy load that a grieving parent is carrying.
I hope, I pray, that you never have to experience anything like the grief our family, and many others have suffered. I hope that you never have to face the day that choosing one more layer for your infant on a frigid winter’s day results in his suffocation. I hope when your toddler darts out of reach in a parking lot, the oncoming car has time to slam on the breaks, I hope that when your pre schooler finds the back gate unlocked, you catch her before she wanders off into the wilderness. I hope and pray your parenting decisions end, at absolute worst, with “I can’t imagine what would have happened if…”. But should the unthinkable happen to you too, I hope and pray you are granted grace and compassion by the Internet warriors. I hope the masses don’t decide to add to your grief by piling their scorn and shame upon you. And I hope and pray that if they do, you are strong enough to not believe them. To know you did the best you could for child in that moment. That you are a good parent, that you are human and not infallible, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry that blame on your shoulders, your heart. I’ll be there to say all that and more on every post where I find someone cutting you down in your darkest hours, because I’ll know how you feel, and because I’m still working on that grace for myself.
What an important message, and a hard thing to share. Thank you for your bravery Geraldine. And while there are condemners in real life and the internet, you should know that most parents hear your story with nothing but compassion and grief for you and the notion that none of us are immune to loss or tragedy.
I lost my first to SIDS. Our story made the news because it occurred at daycare, and to this day I've never been able to read the coverage for fear of just what you described. Reading the criticism of the baby who fell into the gorilla pen and now the alligator attack is so painful. I can imagine the guilt and the pain. So much love to all parents who were robbed of their children.
Thanks for sharing this Geraldine. The human race seems to be lacking in grace these days. People are so consumed with being perfect that they can't deal with grief. They can't handle being awkward, stumbling on their words, crying or taking the risk of saying something wrong. That would interfere with their perfect self perception. So instead they hide on the Internet, judging and spouting their indignation. But what about real life? Messy, heartbreaking real life? We all need to strive for grace because it is rare and beautiful. We need to forgive the awkward and the awful so we can forgive ourselves when we are awkward and awful. We need to take risks and reach out to others. Grace takes practice. Real life practice.