My journey after losing my Son

I was shocked and saddened to hear the news about the Sandy Hook School shooting and my thoughts went to the parents of the children and how they will cope with their loss.  As a parent who also lost a child, I decided that it may be helpful if I wrote down the thoughts and experiences that I had as I went through my grieving, in the hope they will help them in some way.

My Husband and I have been grieving for 3 years; our son was killed by a drunk driver in June 2009.  Although it was not considered a violent crime, it was still a crime and one that in an instant took our son away from us forever.

I don’t think any parents can imagine what they would do if they are told that their child has been killed. When that happened to us, we were confused and unbelieving; how could this be, not our son.  We didn't know what to do next; we couldn't see him or touch him, it was impossible to believe the unthinkable had
happened.

My son was 28 years old. He was single, lived at home.  He was a surfer & skier. Just starting his life and just starting a career.  He loved his family, his niece
& nephews and was looking forward to starting his own family when the time
was right.  Our son will now never have the chance to do any of these things.   

In the beginning, the grief is unbearable.  My heart was broken. It was impossible to imagine that life could still go on. Talking about anything else was meaningless. I felt that I belonged to a club that should never exist and that
life would never be the same, and it wasn’t.  My son had been stolen from me.

For many months, everything would remind me of Mitch.  I see the sun shining and I think my son would have loved to be riding his motor bike, I hear on the weather report that the surf is up and I picture my son surfing. This still happens today, 3 years later, everything reminds me of my son, the weather, a smell, music, and thoughts of your child never leave your mind.

We didn’t seek professional help but we did find ways to cope:

• We remember Mitch and don’t worry if it makes us sad. I am lucky my husband wants to talk about our son as much as I do, we look at photos, we talk about memories, and we laugh at the funny stories and although we would give anything to have our son by our side again we realize we can't have that, so we make do with our memories. If partners or spouses grieve differently then I can imagine that it can be more difficult but one must respect another's needs.  Everyone grieves differently and there is no right or wrong way.
• We take everything very slowly we don’t let petty things affect us….we believed the worst has happened to us already so we don’t waste energy on things we can’t control. 
• We don't allow the man that killed our son to have any air time....all our thoughts are for our son and our family.  He took our son and we will not let him take anything else.
• We focused on our family to make sure our other son doesn't in anyway feel shut out.  It is hard to go on after the loss, but we must as the rest of the  family is still here.   
• We have beautiful friends that stand by us and help us along this journey. We also keep close contact with our son's friends. We have a" Remembering Day" each year where we gather and have fun together.  We get to see his friends marry, have their children, be part of their lives and feel that in some way Mitch lives through them.

As time goes by, I found that I am able to cope with the pain and outwardly appear to be better but inside the feelings are still raw.  I don’t spend time looking for closure now as I don’t think there is real closure for this type of loss, one just learns to adjust, learns to cope and learns to live one's life with the constant feeling that a piece is missing.

As much as we would give anything to turn the clock back and make this heartbreaking tragedy go away, we can't and so instead, we consider it
a privilege and honor to have had our Son in our lives for 28 wonderful years
and try to find some peace by keeping those memories alive as we continue on
our journey without him.