We are not the same anymore

I have a wonderful friend that lost her son the same year DJ passed away in 2006. We met in a support group for mother's who had lost children and she is one of those friendships I will take to heaven. Today she told me that she will never be the same person she was before and that her family was struggling with that fact. That they didn't understand the change in her and though she didn't say it I am assuming that they also wished she would go back to being the same old person she had been before her beautiful son's death. Well......

Here is my take on it. None of us will ever be the same, no parent, no sibling, no best friend, no grandparent, NO ONE! And for someone to expect us to be is ludicrous.

We will never be able to hold our child again and feel their hair next to our skin.

We will never be able to hear them say Mom one last time.

We will never be able to serve their favorite food without wishing they were there to eat it.

We will never get to watch them glow in the sunlight or beam in the moonlight.

We will never get to watch them create and live in the world they love, that loved them.

We will never be the same, how anyone can expect us to be is wrong.

However, all that said--

We will also never be able to hear a story about the death of a child without our heart going out to the family.

We will never stop praying for our remaining children who are still grieving after so many years.

We will never have the same compassion we had before our own loss, our compassion is deeper

We will never understand how someone can hurt a child on purpose when we miss ours so badly

We will never understand why a child will take their own life when ours did not have a choice to continue living theirs

We will never forget to pray for our friend's who have lost precious children



There is so much that has changed within us and around us and to us that we will never be the same.

I have more and less compassion for people now than I did before, more for those that have the same unbearable, life altering, horrendous loss that I have had AND less for ignorant people who think life is not a gift and will strike and hurt and batter their children.

We as mothers tend to stand stoic, we are the glue the holds the families together and if after four years we haven't changed yet then just wait, it will come. Maybe it will come in small ways, like driving a different route so I don't have to be near the same road my son died on. Or maybe it will come in big ways like another mother I know that bought a Harley and now has two to escape the pain and just ride.

We are not the same people, we wish terribly that we were, that our boys, our children were still with us but they aren't and we will never be the same. My hope is that you all get to stay the same and never have to change because of loss.


(Got book back from editor this week, I am fixing errors, have to write my biography and back of book information and then soon we will be in e-book form-then real books after--hope I have been able to honor all of your children!) Thanks again for reading, Lisa-forever DJ's mom