This Is What Grief Looks Like – Day 2006

Hannah: She saw someone hand me money and when we get to the car, she has a meltdown. “I hate all this attention. I hate all the help. I hate the way people look at me. I would rather have my dad back instead of all this food, flowers, and fucking cards.” Now, how do I address what she said in the heat of the moment when I feel the same way. She couldn’t talk to me through the tears. Sometimes I hear her talking to herself and when I listen, she isn’t talking to herself. When she is having a hard time with something she will scream “I just need you here to help me.” When I am on a high and she is in a low it’s more difficult to manage because I am trying to stay high but seeing your daughter like that is extremely painful. “Baby, baby, baby, baby, we are ok, and it will get manageable eventually. He would never want us to be sad like this and he never wanted to leave us,” is what I say to her. “Shut up, stop calling me baby. Jerry called me his baby and I never want to hear that word again,” she says, and I know exactly how she feels. Jerry was more of a father to her than anyone has ever been before and being an emotional 12-year-old trying to find your way in the world is hard enough, now she has lost the person she thought of as her dad.

Captain America: He is angry, sad, heartbroken, and lost. He gets mad because Jerry isn’t here to fix things for him. He screams, yells, slams doors, punches doors, kicks walls, and sometimes he will walk away. I understand, I want to do the same thing. He writes on his hand, keeps a journal, sleeps in Jerry’s spot every night, and has hoarded all the things of Jerry’s he kind at the house. He acts out at school and home and says some really mean things and has had trouble with kids at school. The only thing that he finds comfort in is wearing a necklace of ashes and a pillowcase with things of Jerry’s in it. Again, I can’t blame him, and Jerry was more of a father to him than anyone has ever been before. He misses him immensely.

Kollin: He choses to suffer in silence. In June we found out his biological father passed away in February. Even though they didn’t have a relationship at all, it bothered him. He had no closure and when he found out so much time had passed that he wasn’t sure if he should process that or just leave it in the past. Then, losing the man he loved as his dad he describes it as “being hit with a semi-truck and surviving.” He struggles with being the new man of the house and still wanting to be a 16-year-old kid. Kollin is ADD and has trouble staying focused, now we can magnify that by one million. He has amazing friends that check on him constantly and so many people love him so that helps a ton. He wants to show emotion sometimes but often waits until things are stacked up and then it all comes out at once.

Me: Jerry was my whole world and the only person I wanted for the rest of my life. Even after 5 years we couldn’t stay away from each other and never wanted to do anything without the other one. I have lost the one person I could tell anything to. He was my safe place where there were no insecurities and no judgment, only love, support, and comfort. And, when I say that I really mean it. We had such a weird relationship, we never argued. He defended me and loved me with a passion that I never imagined existed. I’m lonely. I’m lost. I miss my husband. I wish every day that I could just go be with him. I need him so much and it consumes me in a way that makes me lose all concentration and I forget where I am or what I am doing.

I struggle helping my kids because I don’t really know how to help myself. I just know that needing to see my husband outweighs any other responsibility that I have.