How can I express how it feels to lose a child?

I had experienced the death of loved ones before – both of my parents had died. So I would have expected to have similar feelings now, right?  Wrong!!!

The death of my child tore my guts out; just ripped them out with giant claws, smashing my heart into a million particles before tossing my lifeless carcass on a trash heap.

I sobbed for days on end until I was bone dry.  I would still cry, my chest heaving up and down, but no more tears flowed.  Nothing touched me.  I was numb.  “Stay numb”, I thought.  “Don’t feel.  Don’t think.  Lay here and wait to die.  Certainly a hollowed-out carcass will eventually die?”                                                                                              

I wondered, “Will I ever feel again?  Will I ever hum my favorite hymns again?  Or be able to listen to lovely music without crying?  Will time pass?”  I could not fathom it.

The “million particles” of my smashed heart felt like free-falling confetti for days on end, then weeks.  Could I survive a month?  Two months?  Six months?  It seemed impossible.

I wanted to be without emotion or feeling, but my “insides” screamed at me, “It’s your fault!  If only you had done things differently when he was a child!  If only you had said the right things last time you talked with him!  If only! If only!”

  It had to be my fault.  Oh God, how could You allow this to happen to my boy?  If You knew this was coming, why didn’t You stop him?  This was my firstborn . . . I lost my boy!!!

  The pain had no place to go for release so it turned inward and burned up any feeling of love in my heart and became the ashes of hatred.  It burned against God because there was no one else I could blame.  All my pent-up guilt, bitterness, and hatred became like an evil cancer, creating internal and external pain . . . unbearable pain.  It had no outlet except to attack my body and so it did; making me weak and sick.

That’s enough for now. Sound familiar? This is pure acid, isn’t it? Like drinking gall. Childbirth has been described by a comic who will never experience it as: “it’s like pulling your bottom lip up over your face” is how I remember it. But I’ve lived through childbirth. Some survivors don’t survive suicide. We all have our own stories. Care to give yours a voice? Please share.