Mittwoch, 13. Juli 2011

It's now been a year since I last saw, held and kissed Lennon. At first I was scared of that dreaded 10th July, but then I realised that my heart already broke this time last year, and even though it kept on beating - it remains broken. So I don't have to be scared anymore. 

Instead I found it soothing to have people remember our Lennon on that tragic day and I really cared about other people caring. Thank you.

When I first started writing this blog I wondered whether time could be some kind of healer. And given that it's been a year I have been asked occasionally whether our loss has become easier to deal with, or whether am I feeling any better. Well, ....

An outsider might say that our life seems quite normal again. I gave birth to my third beautiful child Brodie, Bessie is being an amazing little girl and we do everyday things such as visiting a playground, sitting in a restaurant, meeting friends, even going on holiday. But the truth is that I also cry every single day, I visit his memory stone and am shocked to read his name and I am in complete despair realising that the photos I look at are the only ones I will ever have. But worst of all are the images and the feelings from that awful day that I relive day in and day out. They seem to be forever burned into my memory and they are so brutal that they would take anyone’s breath away.

How could seeing and revisiting those pictures ever become any less painful?
How could this ever heal?

Losing Lennon can't be compared to a wound, which would have the chance to scar over and eventually heal. Losing a child is more like an amputation, like losing a limb. (Although given the choice I would have given both legs and arms, even my life, if that would have meant that Lennon could still be here. But I wasn't given that option.)

Assuming someone loses a leg, would we expect this person to ever walk like he used to? The best one could hope for is that this person may learn how to walk again - but never to walk as fast as before.

I am quite certain that I too would admire the person that would continue to face life full front instead of indulging in self pity.

So that is what I am trying to do. I am forcing myself each day at a time to make it a worthwhile day for Bessie and Brodie. But it's not easy and it seems like a pretty thin line that I am walking on, as my heartache remains a constant companion.

So is time a healer? I am afraid I have to say "no". Instead I assume time is a teacher. Losing my son is not like a wound that will ever heal  -  all I can hope for is that I learn each day how to cope with losing this vital invisible limb that was more important to me than my legs and arms. 

Lennon - I love and miss you. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

4 Kommentare:

  1. Hi Nadja, I just now saw your comment on my blog. This is a really beautiful and powerful post.
    I am so very sorry for the loss of your precious Lennon. He looks and sounds like such a sweetheart. My heart just breaks in pieces for you thinking about this unimaginable loss. It is hard to comprehend and I wish so much for you that things were different.
    Sending you lots of hugs.
    Stephanie

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  2. Time as a teacher. I like that. In the days after my daughter died, when everyone was trying to convince me that I did still have reason to live, a close friend told me that time would be my cushion. It sounded so nice--soft, comfortable--in the middle of my sharp, harsh reality. I heard those words over and over in my head until I began to actually experience it. I feel that I am now more used to not having my daughter around, to living with the experience of her death. It's a horrible thought, that familiarity makes something easier, but maybe that's what time has taught me.

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  3. I also like the idea of time as a teacher. Nadja, I'm so deeply sorry for the loss of your son, your dear Lennon. He was such a handsome little boy, I love his photograph on your blog header, such a beautiful, cheeky grin! But it is that same photograph that just makes my heart ache so much for you and for his family. So hard to believe that his life was cut so short. So deeply sad and so unfair.

    Congratulations on the birth of Brodie, that is a gorgeous name.

    The shock, I don't think that I will ever get over the shock. It always seems so horribly awful and final and . . . just unbelievable. That something like this could happen. I know that I am terribly haunted by images from the time around my daughters's birth. It is almost as though the shock or the grief does something peculiar to our memories and makes some of them very vivid and hard to escape from. And to lose your son in such traumatic and unforeseeable circumstances. So very, very hard.

    And you're right, when something truly terrible and irreparable happens, you just have to keep facing forward, keep trying. Even if you are a very different person and will never quite walk as you once did.

    Nadja, I've been following here for a while and I've read every single post but I felt as though I could not say anything, what happened to Lennon is just so terribly, terribly sad. But I know that so many people will say nothing and I don't want to be yet another. Love to you, your Lennon is remembered here xo

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  4. Dear Nadja,
    It's now been over 2 years and I want you to know I think of and remember Lennon. I know I always will and I never even met him. I hope you and your family are doing okay.
    Just a week ago, here in Denmark, a family lost three daughters in 3 days, after an accident on their farm. Every day, when I woke up and saw on the news that another didn't make it, my heart broke. It's unimaginable but yet I know you and your family have also experienced this unimaginable loss. I am so sorry. I guess I'm thinking of Lennon more than usual this month and wanted you to know.
    xo
    Stephanie

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