Onions have layers. I’ve chopped my share. Likely you have, too. Each fragrant layer releases more tears. The deeper we peel the harder we cry. In my writing, I struggle to describe what it feels like to live without my beloved child. As I grapple with my own feelings I’m always looking for new ways to express my deep sorrow. Like the onion, does grief have layers, too?
If I look at my life in layers I can see the growth from one layer to the next. What about grief? For those of us on a grief journey is it possible to weep in layers? Like the onion, each layer peeled releases deeper, more “fragrant” anguish as we are reminded that our beloved children or other loved ones will never return to us in this life.
Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep. ~ Carl Sandburg
Like you, over my lifetime thus far I have experienced the loss of loved ones. First my grandparents, then my parents. With each loss, each layer peeled, I felt the loss more deeply. However, no loss I had yet experienced could touch the loss that was to come. I didn’t know that the grief which lay in wait would nearly snuff out my life.
Time had a way of marching on as my children grew up and flew the coop to make their own marks on the world. I had to face an empty nest and that, too, brought tears and required some getting used to. Now there were just two of us rattling around in our house. I had to learn to cook for just two, not four. There were visits from the kids which were never long enough, but it helped to spend time with them as the months pushed on.
None of the onion layers peeled off and the tubs of tears cried could prepare me for the worst sorrow on earth, the loss of my firstborn to suicide. The crushing blow to my heart, the thunderous roar to my mind, I had never experienced before. My body throbbed from head to toe and I thought the pressing load of anguish in my chest would cut off my oxygen and snuff out my life. Many of you lost your children when they were just “babes.” I had my firstborn son, Greg, in my life for 30 years. Still, I was not ready to let him go. I would never have been ready to let him go. I’m sure you feel the same way about the child(ren) you have lost.
I will mourn the loss of my son for as long as I draw breath. My heart will always carry a puddle of tears in its depths. One does not “move on” from the loss of a child for any cause. If there are those in your circle who tell you it’s time to return to the person they once knew, politely tell them it’s impossible to do that, and even if it were possible you choose not to. We carry our children with us in our hearts until we have them in our arms again.
As my readers know I am a blogger on social media. My focus is to share my feelings as a mom who has buried a child. I share my experience with those who are on a grief journey from child loss or other losses. We are fellow travelers. We know deep heart pain which sets us apart from those who don’t. Some of us have even tried to help those who have not experienced such loss to understand what we are going through. We want them to show compassion, even sympathize with us in our sorrow, but empathy is impossible unless they, too, have lost a child.
I have read so many responses from grievers who have been told in various ways to get over it and get on with their lives. It makes my heart ache to read such nonsense because I know those words are barbed arrows to a shattered heart. Our hearts ache with longing for the loved ones we’ve been forced to bury. Why can’t people understand that? Why do they insist on putting a timetable on our grief?
Back to the onion illustration. No one can tell you ~ and I have no intention of comparing our losses ~ which layer of grief you are on right now. If this analogy works for you, only you know what you feel and that’s all that matters. I am here for you as are other grievers. Arm in arm and with tears in our eyes we take small steps forward together.
You have seen me tossing and turning through the night. You have collected all my tears and preserved them in your bottle! You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:9
Verse shared from Living Bible (TLB)
More blog stories appear on my author page, Healing After Suicide.
Hope after Suicide 