I’m tired

In early December, I sat with the president of the Board of Inquiry into Sam’s death. The findings weren’t good, as I knew they would be. The military takes no responsibility into his death. The harassment that Sam underwent was not significant because the Warrant Officer that the allegations were made against said they didn’t happen. The military also found that adequate mental health care was provided.

The psychiatrist who Sam was under the care of, was never even interviewed. The medications he was grossly over prescribed, were never even factored into the inquiry.

I am submitting a grievance against the findings of the BOI. I’m not sure of the implications it will have on my career since i work for the establishment that I’m now fighting against. I could find myself out in the cold. But I have enough money/ equity I suppose that if I found myself out of a job, I could buy a trailer and live in it for a few years before the money ran out: before Id have to live on the streets. Hopefully, I’d be gone by that point in time.

I have written to the Military Ombudsmans office and they gave me the contact information of a person who heads up medical complaints within the military. I’ve written to him. This morning, on the advice of the contact within the Ombudsman office, I also lodged a complaint with the College of Physicians in the province of Ontario.

I’m doing all this while stopping every few minutes to take care of the people who knock on my door at work for the services that my office provides. My supervisor asked if I would rather have a quiet desk away from all of the commotion to do all of this, but I need to be surrounded by my things, in a space that I feel familiarity in. I welcome the disruptions as well : having to keep my composure as i sit at this desk makes it easier than becoming lost in the words I have to write over and over as I reach out to these different avenues with my grievance.

But I’m tired. I’m tired in my body and I’m tired in my soul. No one seems to want anything to do with this – no one wants to help. They just want to move on as the world moves on. And I understand. But I’m tired.

Sam was a part of me in a way that no one else can or will understand. No one else was his mother. He was my son. He grew inside of me. I nurtured him within my own body until he could survive in this world. And when he died, a huge part of me died too. How could it not?

Having to go over these details over and over is taking its toll. Not having anyone to share this with : to talk about this with- is taking its toll. But I can’t stop until there is some accountability taken for the life that should still be here for at least another 40 years.

More often than not, looking into the innocence of my dogs eyes is the light that keeps me from spiraling down the black hole the stands before me.

I’m tired.