It has been over a month since I have written here. Partly because I haven’t had anything to say. Partly probably because I have been shoving things down some? I don’t know.
We just passed by 9 months. Time hasn’t necessarily made things easier. I think I am just more numb. In the beginning, I was numb due to shock. Now, I think I am numb because of reality.
It is a fucking shitty reality. The asshole that caused Bryce’s accident isn’t being charged with causing his death because camera footage showed Bryce crossing the white line ONE SECOND after red. ONE SECOND. So that means that that man turned despite my son being right there. There is no way he didn’t see him as he first tried to claim. He was still negligent. So where is the logic in not charging him? There is none. My son crossing a line ONE SECOND after a light turned red means his life means less to the county prosecutors than a man who has over a decade of repeat misdemeanor vehicular offenses and was driving on a suspended license that night. So he will get yet another slap on the wrist if the city opts for more misdemeanor charges for the failure to yield and the suspended license violation. Because those have taught him so many lessons in the past, right?
The reality now has me waking up every morning and having to remember that my son isn’t here. I have to go through the day with that knowledge. I have to go to sleep every night with that knowledge. He will never see the rest of his life. Never get married. Never have children. Never grow old. All because of that man that night.
The reality now is that our entire family, extended family, and family friends are suffering right now. We are all struggling with the knowledge that one year without him is looming closer. Many of us are battling horrible depression. Many of us are battling horrible anxiety. His baby brother is so deeply depressed that his affect is so flat that his teachers this year have never seen him smile. He is so apathetic to life that he can’t see anything positive about life. Even when doing things he generally enjoys, he says he isn’t happy. I have had to medicate my 12-year-old. There is nothing wrong with needing it but I hate that he has needed it so young.
Very few people know the exact reason why I went back to work as early as I did. I didn’t tell anyone but my best friend then because I didn’t want to scare people.
I went back to work way sooner than I should have, yes. But I did it because I had to do it. Not because of money. Work was amazing and would have given me as long as I needed. They even got approval for me to go negative into my PTO if needed so I wouldn’t have to worry about pay. I needed something to force me out of bed. In the first week, I was only out of bed when I had to be. I let Carter play video games as much as he wanted because I knew that was how he was clearing his mind. I didn’t eat. I hardly had anything to eat for the first weeks. I lost around 10 pounds in the first couple weeks. I could barely drink anything. Anytime I tried to eat, it came back up. I couldn’t sleep either but yet I also could barely handle being out of bed. It was too overwhelming. The pain. It was too much. The second week wasn’t much better. I moved a little more and kept busy on projects around the house just to keep my brain busy. It still didn’t feel real but it was slightly more real because I had finally seen him. I didn’t see him that night. Or for the entire week after. I wasn’t able to see him until the funeral and that was hard because it looked like him…but it didn’t look like him. He looked so different. My logical side knows why he looked different. I even knew it then. But my brain also tried to protect me and it still wanted to pretend that he was just away. A trip maybe? His dad’s house? A snowboarding trip with Keston? He’d wanted another one of those. Maybe a trip somewhere with Rory. I didn’t want it to be real. I would lay in bed, wearing his clothes, with my face buried in his pillows that still smelled like him. I needed his smell. That fucking horrible 19-year-old boy stink. But it was his stink and I needed it.
But it was still too overwhelming. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. My depression wasn’t managed. My anxiety was so high that I was feeling like I was crawling out of my skin almost all the time. And I couldn’t imagine living without my baby. I didn’t yet know how fast or slow he’d died. We now know that it was instant. So if you knew him, please let that comfort you even slightly like it does us. But at that time, I kept imagining him in horrible pain. Scared. Crying for me when I was only a few miles away. It was too much.
All of that left me on the verge of suicidal. Don’t stress out and call for help for me because I am not now thanks to those who love me, therapy, and finally not being afraid of increasing my medication. But at the time, I kept having recurring thoughts of not wanting to live without him. Of wanting to go to the exact spot where he landed and just laying there. Let a car hit me? Doing something else…anything else…whatever it would take so that my heart could stop in the same place as his. I now know that Carter needs me and he is part of what pulled me out but then? I wasn’t even sure I was the best for him. How could I help him if I couldn’t even help myself? How could I help him if I was such a hot fucking mess?
So I went back to work. Weeks sooner than I should have. But I was between a rock and hard place. I either stayed home and let my mental health spiral more and more or I went back to work so that I would be forced to get my ass out of bed and they’d send a welfare check if I didn’t show up. I don’t know if it was the right choice. Looking back, I would have done things differently but it isn’t like my mind was thinking clearly.
And now…it has been over 9 months without seeing my beautiful boy. It has been 9 months of trying to adapt to a life I don’t want. I am doing the best I can for myself. For Carter. I don’t feel like its enough.
But do we ever?
Grief is a B!tch 