There's No Place Like Grief

Writing has always been an outlet for me. A place of solace. Yet I haven't been able to write a word since your accident. Until today. My fingers wanted to talk about you. About this impossible weight of loss crawling across every inch of my skin, my heart, my soul.

Every morning I wake up, make coffee, let the dogs out and sit on the back steps you built. From that vantage point I can see your trucks. I used to sit out there in the morning to see if both your vehicles were there to determine if you were upstairs asleep or already on a landscaping job. 

Now, I look at those trucks and am reminded that you aren’t upstairs asleep. You aren’t at a job site. You’re just not here. 

Then I come in and walk into the dining room where a large 3ft by 2ft photo of you is displayed leaning up against a wall, sitting on a chair. I stare at your eyes, your nose, cheeks, and wispy red hair frozen in a light breeze. Your arms crossed at your chest. The chain necklace displayed around your neck, now rests around my own.

And I cry. 

Some mornings they’re wracking sobs, while others might just be quiet tears carving a familiar path down my cheeks. 

I know grieving is a process. It’s different for everyone. It comes and goes in waves, which for me right now is at hurricane level. Hurricane Aidan. Makes sense. You were a force to be reckoned with, that's for sure. When you decided you wanted something, you didn’t rest 'til you had it. You loved with your whole heart. You’d give the shirt off your back to a stranger or drive two hours with a man you barely knew, yet called him friend, just to help him pick up something he needed an extra set of hands for. 

Your childhood wasn’t easy. I tried to protect you, but I know I often failed in that effort. Instead, you had to learn early how to navigate someone else’s demons. You could’ve grown up angry and jaded, but instead you chose good, you chose right, you chose happiness and hard work.

You were the best at everything you decided to do. I could not be more proud of the man you became. The love you gave to those around you was evident in the outpouring of love we all felt during those excruciating days you fought to live. Until you could fight no more.

My personal grief has reached levels of insanity. When I went to the site of your accident, walking around, viewing it at different angles trying to understand what happened, the weight in my chest was crushing. Then I saw it, the dark stones inches from the railroad tracks. I knew. I knew in that instant that’s where you lay.

My legs couldn’t hold me, and I sank to the stones, not feeling the sharp edges of the rocks digging into my knees and legs.

I broke into a million pieces. When the wrenching sobs began to wane, I brought myself close enough to touch the rocks. Moving them aside I could see the deep red color of your blood saturating the stones. I began placing them in my hand, the sobbing ramped up and without thinking I felt as though I needed all the rocks. They just kept coming, deeper and deeper. I had to put my hand against my stomach as there were more rocks than I could hold. My mind spun a crazy pattern of images of you lying on those rocks. Your life flowing out. I had this image in my mind of your fear in those moments your side by side flipped. Did you scream? Did you know what was happening? When your bones broke, were you in pain? Did you call out for me, and I wasn't there? The questions rapid fired through my brain as I continued to pull these rocks that held the only thing I had left of you on this earth.

When I could hold no more, I sat there. Tears still streaming. Staring through fog in my eyes at these blood-soaked rocks.

I stood up. Walked to my car. Managed to open the back passenger door and carefully laid them inside. 

Once I placed the final rock I looked down at my hands. They were covered in your blood. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to wipe them off. I closed the door and leaned against my car. My mind shattered.

The next thing I remember is driving. Driving to you. I pulled into the cemetery and slowly made my way to the back next to the trees and corn fields. Getting out, I opened the back door and picked up one rock. I sank down next to you in the grass. After crying for what seemed an eternity, I finally lifted the edge of the sod placed over you, dug a small hole in the dirt and buried the rock. 

Until that moment, I hadn’t felt you there. In the cemetery. But now, a living part of you was there. I looked at my hands. The blood now dry. I placed my hands in the grass, allowing the wet blades to soak you in. A part of you was there now.

For the last few weeks, I've been going to your accident site. Collecting more rocks, only now it's with a purpose and not a loss of sanity. I sit and cry or talk with you, still feeling you more there than where you were laid. Then I drive to visit you and bury another rock. 

It gives me purpose. 

There’s no book on how to feel or act when your child passes before you. I don’t know if going to the accident site was a wise choice, but I did it. I had to know. Had to see. 

I’m not sure I’ll keep going there every day. But for now, it’s the only part of you that’s left for me to hold. So I’ll go.

Your heart, liver, and kidneys live on in others. You’ve given life as the last gift you’d give to the world and I’m grateful for that. Yet, on some level I’m enraged I don’t know where those parts of you are. 

It’s not fair. None of this is fair. 

I love you Aidan.