Author: Grief_is_a_b!tch

I thought it was horrible being told that my son had been killed in a motorcycle accident.

I thought it was horrible having to tell his 12 year old brother that his big brother had died.

I thought that having to even THINK about planning a memorial service for my first born baby was horrible.

But no.

Seeing your son at the family viewing before the memorial. Laying inside of a coffin. Looking like him but yet somehow also NOT looking like him. Laugh crying with his dad and big sister about how he’d be so mad at how they combed his hair while his sister gently used her fingers to fix it for him.

Almost falling over…again…just like I did that night…when I saw him lying there.

We hadn’t seen him yet. By the time I arrived at the scene of the accident, he had already been taken away. He wasn’t even taken to a hospital. Straight to the county medical examiner office. I didn’t get to see him. Touch him one last time while his skin was warm and soft. That still hurts. Even though I know that he died on impact in the accident and I’d have arrived after he was gone no matter what, I still wish I’d have been there before he had been taken. Even though I know it would have been horrible to see him that way. They could have covered him with a sheet for me.

But knowing that I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye when I could have touched his hand and rubbed his cheek while he was still warm breaks me even more. Just when I thought I couldn’t break even further.

By the time I was able to see him, it had been a week of pain. He was in a coffin. He had makeup that had been carefully applied by the funeral home. But it wasn’t my baby boy.

That was a shitty Madame Tussauds version of my gorgeous boy. The smile wasn’t there. The dimples weren’t showing. I couldn’t see the life and glimmer in his eyes like he was trying to get away with something. His beard hair wasn’t as soft as he kept it. He was so fucking proud of that beard. There is an entire row of beard oils and conditioners still sitting in his bathroom cabinet. I can’t part with it.

Even though it was my baby but not my baby, seeing him that way caused yet another breakdown. I had had many. Upon many.

I couldn’t help talking to him. Just telling him how sorry I was. I laid my hand on his chest and cried harder feeling the cold against my skin. I rubbed his beard, trying not to rub too firm because the coolness of his skin was making me feel close to full panic. But I couldn’t not rub it. Because I always did. A month before the accident, he’d gotten so sick with the flu and my giant baby boy was still cuddling with me like when he was little and I just sat and rubbed his hair and beard.

He was so fucking proud of that beard.

The first few days were a blur. How do I do this? Is this real life? There is no way that it is real. I mean, this is movie shit. Lifetime drama.

It is simply not possible that MY beautiful first born baby boy. My 19 year old baby boy. My 6’4″ baby boy with gorgeous eyes and amazing dimples. My kind hearted baby boy who, yes, could sometimes be an ass because what 19 year old boy isn’t? But the real him that his friends and family knew was so amazing. So kind. Loving. Caring. Loved hard. Loved his friends and would bend over backwards for them. Loved his siblings and would do anything for them. Would go out of his way to ride home with friends so they wouldn’t have to ride along. Was brilliant, though stubborn (totally from his dad…not me, naturally). My strong willed baby boy who was in the process of being trained as a foreman with a concrete company. My boy who had more ideas for his life than would fit in that big head of his. My boy who had found the love of his life, was heartbroken during a short breakup where he realized that he had been the one to blame for their issues, actively worked to fix himself, and had JUST gotten her back before the accident.

My baby boy with his amazingly fucked up family tree full of half and step siblings thanks to his father and I both having multiple marriages. He never saw them as half or step anything. He loved them all, and they all loved him back.

I walked around numb at first.

Showering was a chore. Sleep was impossible. Eating…what is that? Us 3 parents were in a group text thread to support each other because we all felt the same. I went to Christmas dinner with my ex-husband’s family for the first time in 16 years just because we needed to be together. I pulled my son’s dirty ass clothes from his hamper. From his floor. I grabbed pillows from his bed. Because it all smelled horrible.

But it was HIS horrible smell. His same horrible B.O. that just a few days earlier would have me teasing him, saying to go shower.

One of the venting/bloggy/therapy-like things I posted on my social media stated “I don’t know how to learn how to refer to my baby boy in the past tense. Maybe I will someday. Maybe I won’t.”

I still don’t know how to do it. It has been almost 4 weeks now. Sometimes I refer to him, and it is past tense. Sometimes it is current. I suppose I let myself say whatever works for the moment. Whatever feels natural. Is that correct? No fucking clue.

But what else do I do?

Let’s get you caught up to speed.

The obvious way to do that is to first tell you what happened. The absolute worst day of my 41 years. I’ve been hurt in my life. Physically. Emotionally. Name it. But this.

Not this.

I never in my life could have ever imagined this. Ever. This is the shit that happens to other people, and when it does, you think about how horrible it is and how bad you feel about the situation. How terrible it must be for them. How much pain they must be in. It is just so completely unfathomable. It’s like when you imagine yourself being struck by lightning. You just KNOW it will never happen. It’s silly to even think about it.

But I was struck my lightning. Not literally, of course. But the unimaginable happened.

December 23, 2022

I will never forget that date. I had just gotten off of work, brought home dinner for myself and my 12 year old, and got cleaned up and was relaxing. As I was drifting off, I got a call from my ex-husband. Weird. It’s damn 10:20pm so why the hell are you calling me?

“Have you heard from Bryce?”

My heart dropped.

Friends of his got an alert on their shared Life360 app that he’d gone down on his motorcycle and his gps wasn’t moving. They didn’t have my number so they went to his social media and looked for anyone with the same last name to TRY to reach family.

“How fast can you get there?”

I don’t know if I have ever moved so fast.

Standing at a scene an entire block away yelling “It’s my kid on the bike!” because they were looking at me like I had 3 heads when I busted through their flares and cones diverting traffic. On speakerphone with his dad and stepmom. Watching one officer go talk to another after telling me to wait there. Then go to another. Then another. Then come back to me. They are taking way too long. Something is wrong. This isn’t good.

And 2 more officers pulled up behind us.

“This officer is going to talk to you.”

“Ma’am. I was the first officer on the scene. Your son has been in an accident.”

I remember him using the words deceased with caring and apologetic eyes. I remember that there was a police car right behind me, and I am glad. Because I know I fell against it before sliding to the ground. I remember hearing my ex-husband, my son’s father, scream. His wife start crying loudly. She thinks she remembers me screaming. I don’t remember.

I just remember my world shattering.

Not being able to breathe.

The pain.

The immense pressure on my chest as if my heart was being crushed by a fucking boulder.

Isn’t that what they say? That grief is a bitch? I’ve heard it said so many times in my life. I remember when my mom died in early 2016. It was horrible. It sucked. It was a bitch. I remember crying. I remember things triggering my tears for a couple of years. Even longer than that. I still miss her, and it has been nearly 6 years.

But now, with a new loss…it has now hit me why they say that grief is a bitch. A dirty, nasty bitch that we all wish would fade away into whatever depths of whatever version of hell you may or may not believe to exist.

I have spent the last nearly 4 weeks venting on social media. Like my own personal blog. My own personal version of therapy. Maybe this is a better place to share my feelings. Maybe not. But regardless, you will all now become victims of my venting. My verbal spewing. My attempts to make sense of the inner depths of my most recent trip to see that horrible bitch named Grief.