I’m having a rough night.

It has been almost 14 months now since Sam left us. Mental illness was his demon: he died by the final symptom of it. He died by suicide. He was 31. He would be almost 33 now. He should be almost 33 now. But instead, he is forever 31.

They say that the second year is the hardest. But who is counting anymore. Days just becomes weeks, and weeks become months.

Time has disappeared inside of this vortex called grief. It has robbed me of time. I’m no further from the day he left than I was one month into this journey. Time means nothing to me any more. I sleep; I work and I sleep again. And as each day passes, I rejoice in the fact that when the day ends, I am one day closer to going to where he is. I can’t find joy in any of the things I once did. It feels like I am still standing in the doorway of that morning. I can’t leave. I wish I could go back one more day and be stuck in the last day that he was alive instead. I’d happily stay there with him. But suffice it to say : I have not moved on from the day he left. The world has as the world must, but I’m still standing here: loitering as it were, and I can’t seem to step away from it. I can’t seem to wrap my head around any of it.

I don’t cry as often as I used to, but when I do: look out. It gets messy. For those looking at me, I have created a facade of carrying on with the day to day things that I must do in order to pass the test that I am ok to be around. I just try to fit in, like a square into a circle slot …. hoping no one notices how much I have to bend to get in. It beats being alone: I find some comfort in being around others but inevitably something will happen that reminds me that Im a square amongst the circles and I have to retreat to a quiet space.

I used to feel a future, but I don’t feel it anymore. I have 3 living children who I don’t love any less than I love Sam, but they have lives : good lives and I know they will be ok. I know that they hurt over the loss of their brother but they have families and things to bring them joy. When a mother loses a child, there is just no more joy. Hard as I try, I just can’t feel it anymore.