Grief, healing, and a dream that brought me back to losing my son.
I think of grief as a giant boulder you begin carrying when someone you love dies.
You carry it day in and day out. There is no setting it down while you shower or run to the grocery store. It comes with you.
At first, it’s unbearably heavy. Its sharp edges gouge you and leave wounds. You can’t find a comfortable position to hold it. You shift it from one side to the other, trying to get through the next minute, hour and day. Your muscles ache and shake, and you wonder how you could possibly carry this thing for the rest of your life.
But over time, something changes.
Your body grows stronger. You shake a little less. The places where you hold the boulder begin to wear smooth, forming grooves that fit against you. You learn how to move with it. How to work, laugh, love, and live while carrying something you once thought would crush you.
Sometimes, it fits so well that you almost forget you’re carrying it.
Then something causes it to shift.
An anniversary. A birthday. A song. A scene in a movie. Something so seemingly ordinary that you couldn’t have prepared for it.
Sometimes, you don’t even know what happened. You just wake up feeling the weight again.
An unfamiliar edge presses into an old wound, and suddenly your muscles are shaking. You’re exhausted. You can’t find a comfortable way to hold it, and you wonder how you’re going to carry something you thought you had already learned to carry.
That’s where I am right now.
A couple of weeks ago, I facilitated a private group breathwork session for a close group of friends. Afterward, one of the women said to me, “The last time I did breathwork, it was so emotional, and a lot of old stuff came up. This time wasn’t that bad at all. Does that mean I’ve healed?”
I smiled and explained that I think of healing as a spiral. We can return to something we’ve worked through before, sometimes from a different place or at a different depth. There could be many reasons why one session felt more emotional than another.
Then another woman spoke up.
Something from many years earlier had surfaced the minute she sat down on her mat. Something she thought she had healed. Something she hadn’t thought about in a long time.
And there it was, bringing her to tears.
I understood both of them. The hope that perhaps you’ve finally worked through something, and then surprise of finding it waiting for you again.
Grief and loss reach into so many parts of our lives. They shape our relationships, our choices, the things we fear, and the things we finally find the courage to do. Sometimes we can see those changes clearly. Other times, we’re living them without even realizing where they began.
I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I would not be who I am, or where I am today, if Connor hadn’t died.
His death has shaped me in profound ways. Some I understand. Others I probably haven’t even recognized and may never fully understand.
There is so much about my life now that I love. There is also the fact that I would give anything to have my son back. Both are true.
And knowing how much I’ve grown doesn’t protect me from missing him.
For years after Connor died, I had dreams where he was missing and I was frantically searching for him.
In others, I knew he was going to die. I would hug him and kiss him, desperately trying to hold on. Telling him I loved him. Trying to get enough time, enough words, enough love into a moment that was already slipping away.
I hadn’t had a dream like that in a long time.
Until last night.
In the dream, Connor was leaving, and he didn’t want to see me before he went. I was able to see him anyway, and I wrapped my arms around him.
I told him he didn’t have to leave. That I loved him so much. That he could always call me, and I would come get him wherever he was.
I just didn’t want him to go.
When he walked away, I lay on the ground in the fetal position and sobbed. The grief was so heavy that it scared me. I didn’t think I would be able to release that much pain.
Then I woke up.
The heaviness was still there, pressing against my chest. I had the horrible feeling of losing him all over again, as though an old wound had been torn open while I slept.
I knew it was a dream. I knew he had already died.
But I could still feel myself holding him, asking him to stay.
As I write this, I’m feeling every rough edge of that boulder.
I don’t know what caused it to shift. I don’t know why this particular turn of the spiral has brought me back to such a raw place. I only know that the ache is here, and today it feels much closer to the beginning than I expected.
It’s easier to explain the spiral of healing when I’m sitting with someone else. Harder when I’m the one waking up with a heavy chest, wondering how I’m going to move through the day.
I believe what I told those women. Returning to pain doesn’t erase the healing that came before it.
Still, understanding that doesn’t make this part easy.
Right now, I don’t have some beautiful realization about what this new depth of grief is here to teach me. I miss Connor. I want to hold him. I want him to know that he can call me and I will come get him, wherever he is.
I don’t yet know how I’ll find a comfortable way to carry the boulder again.
But I have before. Somewhere beneath all this hurt, I know I will again.
Today, though, I’m his mom.
And I wish he could have stayed.
Another thread from my heart to yours.