After five days of holding everything together I finally had my moment of release, my time to let the tears fall and the sobs escape. There were reasons I couldn’t fall apart right away. I had too much to do. Awake for 24 hours straight, from the moment I burst into her room until I arrived back home from signing the paperwork to transfer her to the inpatient program at the children’s hospital which found an available bed for her, there truly wasn’t time. There were texts to send, phone calls to make, a 13-year-old son to gently explain all this to. Like any mom, my own needs are thrown to the back of the line.
I have the most breathtaking circle of mom friends. They are my village, my people, these seven ladies. They are the sisters I choose to surround myself with, their children similar ages to mine, with similar interests. Our kids go to the same schools, we live in the same area, we’ve known each other many years, supporting each other through more painful tragedies than this. One of my girlfriends has suffered worse. She’s living the ultimate nightmare, here on this earth, while her firstborn is in heaven. She is wandering the path I could have been on just days ago.
When I was a classroom teacher, there was a novel I would read aloud to my students called Fig Pudding by Ralph Fletcher. Told from the perspective of a 5th grade boy who is the oldest of six children, it recounts a year in the life of a family with humor and grace. Students were usually quick to relate and connect to the characters and the relationships between older and younger brothers and sisters and their parents. But it is a tragic accident which claims the life of one of the siblings which I am remembering now.
In the story, each member of the family must work through their own grief, anger, and confusion. They do so in different ways. Somewhere along the way, the author explains grief like a massive bowl of soup, fresh and hot, the steam curling in wisps as it is set before you. The bowl of soup represents your grief, your feelings. You can eat them now, or you can wait and let them cool, but eventually, you will eat them.
My husband sat down to the table and dug into his soup right away. We have been married for 17 years. I have never seen him sob in that way, ever. I have never seen him so devastated, so unsure, so utterly lost. He kept apologizing to me, wanting to ease the burdens on my shoulders but unable to do so. I had to be strong for him, give him comfort while he took his sips from the bowl set before him. I don't want him to be ashamed, love is not weakness, shedding tears do not make him less of a man. If anything, I am prouder of him than I have ever been. He is ready now, to do the work that needs to be done. To clear the other obstacles from my path, so that I can make my way to the table.
And although we are fortunate not to grieve the loss of a child, we are grieving the loss of the family we used to be. The daughter who once smiled so free and easy. The son who knew nothing of mental illness and what it cost. The innocence we convinced ourselves we all possessed. Even though she is 15, she is still so young, but now it seems darkness has settled over her, aged her, but not with maturity or rational thought, merely with sadness and defeat. So when we eat our soup, we grieve the child she once was, we process the feelings and emotions which consume us over what she did, and what the outcome could have been, what the outcome actually is with so many others who regard suicide as a way out. It is nothing but a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
It is not until I see my own mom and dad, and stand before them in the kitchen I grew up in, next to the table where I used to eat, with their arms around me, that I finally consume my meal. I eat my soup as if it is my first nourishment after a week of fasting. I had communicated with them by text daily, but I could not bring myself to call them or hear their voices because I knew it would break me. I wanted to choose where to eat my meal instead of having it dumped on me.
My daughter will have a few bowls of soup to eat when she gets home, if she hasn’t already eaten some with the help of her therapists. The need for interaction, activity, and to be found desirable by another, but knowing yet again a school year of social isolation is on its way. The ultimatum from a friend and potential loss of that friendship that sent her over the edge, and the knowledge that even if a friendship is reestablished, it will be forever changed as the boy moves on to a new phase in his young adult life, leaving her to flounder in the sea of high school. She will have to sit before the steaming bowls of soup and, at some point, get down to the business of eating them. I pray she will allow us, her friends, or her therapists to help comfort her while she does.