Grief

The Book- Living, Loving and Losing a Son

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Family Grieving

Robb and Jeff, in
Jamaica

When my son died, I was immediately concerned with

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the welfare of our other three children. It wasn’t just worry over one of them being in an accident or becoming sick, I wanted to make sure that they were safe. I asked them through a letter to please be careful, to not knowingly put themselves in harm’s way or take unnecessary chances. In fact, I wasn’t really sure of how to behave around them. I wanted and needed to spend time with them, but sometimes I was too grief stricken to act “normal.” I was torn between trying to be like my old self, or letting the tears flow freely.

How and why I expected to remain the same—how I thought I could go on as I had before, as if I could just cut around the part of me that was grieving for Robb, the huge gaping hole in my heart—I don’t know. And, of course, it didn’t work. I, nevertheless, kept up the façade for quite some time, hiding my emotions when my grown children were around.

That first Christmas, Beth and Jeff were both planning to come home as usual. I wasn’t sure if I should control my emotions or allow myself to cry in front of them. I didn’t want the children to think I was never going to be better, that every time they came home I’d be all gloom and doom. But how, I asked myself, was I going to hold the grief inside without imploding? I talked to Bob about this mix of emotions and he held me as I cried.

It was difficult and I can’t say I solved this problem. Sometimes I would choke back the tears when we talked about Robb, other times I would cry full out in my room or in the shower. Eventually I learned I just had to get it out. The children weren’t entirely themselves either. There was a terrible strain, but we all did the best we could. Back then I often thought hatefully of the saying they taught at the grief counseling sessions: “Fake it until you make it,” so that other people could handle being around you.

Back then, Jeff would occasionally talk about Robb and sometimes quietly mention that he’d been to the cemetery. Susan was the adult child I talked to the most because she lived nearby and also because she was a mother too, which put us on the same wavelength. Beth seemed to be grieving in her own way off in Arizona, rarely mentioning Robb and that bothered me some.

The first time I felt a glimmer of hope that our family was healing took place on Cape Cod. It was our third summer without him and our first return to the Cape since his death. It happened one night after the little ones had gone to bed. We, Susan, Beth, Jeff and I had a long talk about Robb’s death: the particulars. I vividly remember Jeff telling us about the day he received word that Robb was in the hospital, how Jeff had rushed there only to find out that Robb was already dead and had been left in a room on a gurney alone.

He shared his feelings and thoughts of that horrendous time. Susan shared her complete shock and disbelief at the news, how she couldn’t stop thinking how it could have happened, wondering if something more could have been done to save him. Jeff had called Beth to tell her of the death and she could not even talk to him at the time.

That night when I finally took myself off to bed, I knew we had reached a new plateau in our grief process. Finally, we were communicating openly and I could feel somewhat normal again with my children.

I wrote a book called, Living Loving and Losing a Son. It’s a mothers memoir about my son Robb who passed in 1996, and our lives together.