...awkward

In the days immediately after our son took his own life, we were overwhelmed (and very thankful) with people calling, texting, contacting us on social media, visiting, making meals, and so on.  Standard practice for grieving and other major life events (at least in the South).

But now things are different. 6 weeks ago today, we memorialized our son who died on 1.2.18. Six long weeks.

It still feels unreal. As I sit in the silence of our home when it should be busy with dinner preparations and teenagers asking for things and making sure homework is done and school clothes are clean and forms are signed. It is too quiet.

The calls have pretty much stopped coming. I still get the occasional text from some of my closest friends. We are making our own meals now. And all of this is normal. People have their own lives to live and, while they may have known our son and while he was important to many of them, they did not lose a child to suicide. We did.

I am sometimes jealous of our them, the friends and family that have taken care of us over the past few weeks. I want to be able to snap back to normal. I want to be able to say, "Okay, that sucked, but now back to my normal life." I want the pain and loss to slowly fade into the background.

But that is not how it works.

Sometimes it feels....awkward. Like we are "that family" that lost their son to suicide. People don't know what to say as life moves forward.

But here's the thing.  I don't know what to say either. I don't know how to live without Logan. It's like I am stuck in limbo, watching the world move on while I cannot.

 It hurts more every day. Each night I try to push the thoughts of him out of my head. We don't really talk about that day, but I can call up the memory of it in an instant and be right there with the flashing lights and crime scene tape. I can here my husband on the phone saying "Logan's dead, he blew his brains out!". I can feel the horror flow through me as I dropped the phone. My chest tightens, my heart rate increases, my breathing gets shallow.

Here's the thing. While everyone else moves forward (and rightfully so), we are stuck in this place, trying to find a way to rebuild our lives around this giant emptiness where Logan once was. I don't know the answers to how we are going to do that right now. And it will take a lifetime for each of this. The loss of a son and brother will always be a part of our stories.

So, we are awkward. And that's okay.

It's okay to not know what to say to us. I don't know either.

Blessings,
Meri