The service is over. Family is leaving. Life moves on. But I find myself sitting on my front step still crying. It is the day after Valentine's. I watch my son, Zane, run around in our yard, laughing and full of life, and I mourn for him the loss of his brother and what he will never know with Sully. Brad puts his arm around me. I ask him, "Do you think we will always feel this hole, this ache inside"? I don't think life will ever seem normal again. How could I ever be who I was before Sully? As a mother who also lost her son once told me, I wouldn't want to be the person I was before Sully. She is so right.
But how will the days form themselves from here? I need manna just for today as I did so many of the days I carried Sully. Will I continue to write? And why? In the days since Sully's death I have written privately feeling some need for solitary grief. But as so many have walked with me in this journey I feel the days here are not yet over. I think of my boy's playground and I smile. I want for you to walk with me through the completion of that wonderful place and perhaps, I hope, that will mean walking with me through a beginning of healing.
We went this morning for the sunrise on a special stretch of beach we like to think of as ours. It is now two days after Valentine's, six days since Sully died, twelve days since he was born. There we had a private ceremony of our own, all bundled up on the shore, the kid's cheeks growing pink from the whipping wind. The simplicity of nature and its grandure gave us the most perfect sense of completion in saying a final earthly goodbye to our Sullivan. I wonder if the ache feels just a bit less today?
Professional Photos of Sully by Jessica Riehl of Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
Our little boy, Sully
Sully's playground
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Sully's playground fund
THANK YOU for helping us build our sweet Sully's playground. It is finished! Funding and all! The project came to a total of around $70,000 and every single penny was raised by your love and support! You are incredible! Thank you for giving us this amazing gift!
http://www.sullysplayground.com/
http://www.sullysplayground.com/
Effortlessly perfect
"...and the day will push us forward with...its ordinary joys."
About Us
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The Soundtrack to Our Lives
- 1) Josh Radin, "Brand New Day"
- 2) Michael Jackson, "Bad"
- 3) Jonathan Edwards, "Sometimes"
- 4) Tyrone and Euniqua, "We're Knights"
- 5) Sarah Jarosz, "Come On Up to the House"
6 comments:
Absolutely you will never be the same people you were before you loved and lost Sully. A loss this significant can't be undone. It will never be the same. That doesn't mean you will hurt every day forever. We grow new ways of being in the world, incorporating our losses and the way we bear them. You've probably heard it many times, but I feel a need to write again that grief comes in waves - and at first the sea is very stormy indeed. But the troughts between the waves of grief (which are more easily borne if one doesn't resist them) become longer at times. A new wave function begins, weakly at first and then more storngly - the returning of life force. I find it touching that you had your family memorial at the side of the ocean, wave-kissed.
As for why to keep writing here, the part of your writing that is service will not reduce in value. Grief doesn't end with the death and many people know so little about the road to a new normal, the Pheonix road, that almost all of us have to travel at least once in a life time.
Of course, you and your family right now are more important than your readers. It's your story and your loss and you don't owe us anything - but your story of healing does help others heal.
Heidi,
Thank you for sharing Sully's precious life with us. Know that I have sat at this computer unable to read the words as I weep with you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings. I find myself checking the computer daily, hoping that you have written again. I try to imagine my son and yours playing in heaven tonight.
Jenny Vinson
I know the ache will ease I don't know about going away. You will always have that spot in your heart that was for sully but I think the hole does stat to close.Heidi love your Husband and Children and remember they love you to. Find strength thru those angelic faces in Zane and Ella. they will help you and brad work thru the pain and soon you will have some since of normal in your life again. Also remember you have touched many of us thru the journey up until the end. Please keep writting you journal and try to publish it. It would be a great way for other familys going thru the pain or not to see the love and inspiration you have to share. You have my family loving yours just from your writting and your sharing your most precious gifts, Zane,Ella and Sully. Thank you for sharing this very private part of your life with all of us. we love you guys and we will watch Sully,s playground come to life.
Heidi,
I knew Brad (and Chris) when we were quite young - my family lived a few doors down from them in Savannah. My mom is still friends with Brad's mom and she led me to your blog and story last fall. I have been checking in on your guys via your blog for months now.
Please, please, if you have the time and energy, continue to write. I find myself "checking" on you guys constantly as you, Sully and the rest of your family are and will always be on my mind and heart. All of you are in my constant prayers.
You are an incredible writer. I think you should know that you, Sully and your story have changed my life. You and Brad are amazing and courageous parents. I have learned so much from all of you.
I do hope that one day I can meet you all. My family and I plan to help with Sully's Playground both financially and hopefully physically when you guys have a work day. We are currently working with our minister to see if Sully's playground can be a special offering for our congregation perhaps sponsored by our Children's Church. Our minister was also deeply touched by your story. I think our congregation will be as well.
Please feel free to contact me if you should ever want to talk. We live in NYC so we are not too far away to help with a work day for the playground.....
Rebecca Hunt
You two struggle to love well. Thank you for showing the rest of us what that looks like. I saw you today up in the balcony and prayed for you there. Sully's big heart has grown your hearts immeasurably. Yes, the grief will be there - some days more than others - some days in the years to come it will feel like he left just yesterday. But there will also be a sweetness to it...whenever you look at the flowers under Ella's tree or a bird sings. Do, as the others have said, keep writing! You all are a blessing to all of us, just as Sully is a blessing to all of you. Thank you.
Quote of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Nothing can make up for the absence of someone we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it’s a great consolation. For the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bond between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap, he does not fill, but on the contrary, He keeps it empty and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.”
May this quote from Bonhoeffer bring you comfort and peace--God does "gift" us with being able to remain in "communion" with one another...I love Bonhoeffer's use of the word, "communion" here--when we commune we are in fellowship with all the saints--both those militant (still on earth) and those triumphant (those who are now with God).
Cathy
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