Category: Uncategorized

I’m still trying to get the hang of this therapy thing, though I do like my therapist. He’s chill and I feel comfortable with him, which is something that has been lacking when I tried counseling in the past.

His plan is to work with me on my pre-existing depression and anxiety which has now worsened since losing Bryce, as well as incorporating grief and PTSD. He wants to dig into my past because he feels that we can’t “fix” my now if we don’t also address the core of why I feel how I do.

I am still new in this process, both the grief and the therapy, so I am still learning and I have barely scratched the surface of both of them. Depression is obviously often a chemical imbalance in the brain. That is my case. It is a strong genetic thing in my family. But in addition to that, losing a child would cause anyone to spiral into a horrible depression. Now try mixing the two together and you might understand why my head has been a pretty miserable place.

One thing he told me is that depression is often upset about what has already happened in the past mixed with a fear of what might happen in the future. So in my case, it would be being broken about what happened to Bryce, which is now past, mixed with fear and upset about what might happen in the future, such as who I am without my son, upset about his loss of life, fear of how his brother will cope, etc. Often times when depressed, people withdraw. Need to pull into themselves. Be alone. That is often how it is for me when I am low. I am either wanting to be alone or only with those I am very close to as opposed to being social. One thing he has said is that there is nothing wrong with needing that time, especially for someone like me who is in a profession that is very social and is about caring for others. It is okay to have that decompression time to just recharge and be alone. But that can’t be all the time. He said I sometimes need to make sure I challenge myself to push beyond myself, and that’s the hard part for me.

He stresses that it is important to know that there will be good days and bad days in my grief. That it is okay to have good days. It is okay to be happy. It is okay if I do not move in a predictable, linear pattern. It is normal to go forward and backward, up and down, and even in a fucking circle. In my opinion, the term “moving on” after a great loss isn’t the right way to phrase it. You don’t actually “move on”. Yes, you continue living. You continue going to work. You get up every day. You go through your routine. You might make new relationships. You will do fun things. You will love. You will laugh. But doing those things does not mean that you “moved on” from the person you are missing. They are still with you. Not in a religious sense…not to me anyway, since I am not religious. But they are with you in your heart, your mind, your memories, your thoughts, your words. If it is your child, like what I am dealing with, they’re even in your DNA. Bryce shared half of my DNA. My heart gave him life. My body gave him life. He will always be with me. So even as days pass and I move through time, I will not “move on” from him.

At my last session, I talked to him about how I had been approved to buy a house. I had gone back and forth on the idea. I mentioned in my last post how hard it is to be in this house now. Even before Bryce’s accident, I had planned on trying to buy a home this year. This home was perfect for me and Carter. A modest 3 bedroom with a backyard for him and the dog. My best friend and her family are down the street. Not far from his school. Still close to everything we need. Still close to Bryce’s memorial site so I can keep maintaining it. In our conversation, it came out that I feel a little guilty about the idea of moving. Maybe because it is leaving the place Bryce last lived? Maybe because he isn’t here to experience it with us? But he reassured me that there is nothing wrong with what I am doing. Bryce is in my memories. In me. Not the house. That he would want this for us.

I know that every word he says is correct…doesn’t make it any easier though.

There are so many things that you don’t think about when you think of how grief might affect your life.

It is expected that there will be stereotypical grief issues such as depression, etc but I wasn’t prepared for the dropping off of support from my immediate family. I wasn’t prepared for the weight fluctuations because sometimes I can’t eat and other times I eat my feelings. I wasn’t prepared for how it would impact trying to hold a relationship. I wasn’t prepared for how fucking hard it is to balance my grief and Carter’s. I wasn’t prepared for how fucking hard it is to juggle life.

And I really wasn’t fucking prepared for how hard it is to be in this house. On one hand, this is still my comfort spot when I need to escape from the world to process my thoughts and feelings. It is where Bryce was mere hours before he was taken from me. It is where he slept at night. His room is still a little bit of a mess. There are still things sitting in the corner of the room where he left them. There is still a chaotic pile of extra bedding on the floor at the foot of the bed where he left it. There is still the broken tv that he found by a dumpster that he SWORE he was going to fix. There is still a box of random items that he never unpacked when we moved here 4 months before the accident. The bathroom still has his items in the cabinet. I love seeing those things.

On the other hand…

This is the house where he climbed on the roof for me to hang Christmas lights for his baby brother only weeks before he was taken from us.

This is where he slept at night but his room has now lost his scent. This is where my car and his bike shared a garage. This is where he so fucking excitedly worked on the truck he bought. This is the home that he pulled away from as he left on his bike for the last time, expecting to be back a few hours later. This is the home where I came home after work that night not knowing that he’d be taking his last breath only 30 minutes later. This is the home where I received the near frantic call from his dad in Tucson asking if I’d heard from him. This is the home that I drove back to in shock holding a ziplock bag with my son’s wallet and shattered cell phone.

This is the home I drove back to after my son’s memorial service where I saw him lying in a casket. This is the home where I’ve spent almost 4 months in so much pain.

Leaving this house won’t fix the pain. Not by a long shot. Nothing will. But I don’t know if I can stay in this house. Even if it would mean breaking a lease.

So now I get to balance life, balance my grief, balance Carter’s grief, wonder if I’ll ever have a mind healthy enough for a relationship, wonder if I should move to a new home to give us a “fresh” home, and deal with the feeling of constantly missing my son and wishing he were still here to experience his life. He should be here experiencing life.

I didn’t think my head would be this fucked up this quickly since I last wrote and got some thoughts out. But simple videos tonight that I loved seeing set me off…because everything does. And maybe I was already on the verge because I am on day 3 of a headache and have noticed that I have been doing a lot of clenching of my jaw. So apparently I was already feeling extra stress and tension.

I love seeing videos and photos of him, even when they make me cry like tonight. I absolutely want every single one that anyone has. But tonight, I first started crying over a video of him petting the cat with a towel on his head. He looked like a goof with the towel on his head. Maybe it was because that same cat was lying next to me purring loudly as I watched it. Then I cried at a video Rory took of him doing very early practice with his wheelies. Then even harder at a video of him just riding.

I am so tired. So tired of feeling this way. So tired of being upset. So tired of missing my baby. Tired of crying. Tired of being angry. Tired of feeling like a burden. Tired of feeling like I am doing more harm than good to some around me. When you mix my work and school schedules with my current mental and exhausted state and all of my obligations on my days off, it doesn’t leave me with much time and I feel like I am being cruel to anyone wanting to spend time with me. Some days I have zero energy to even hold a conversation. Other days I do. Some days I have energy to be social. Other days, I have zero energy or tolerance for it.

But I can’t help it. It’s been almost 4 months and I still feel like I am a hot fucking mess. I feel lost. I feel like I have little energy most days. I am tired even when I sleep well. I am angry at the world for taking my son from me. I am angry at the county for taking so long to decide what the fuck they’re doing about what happened.

Anytime I feel like I am starting to do better…to feel better…I feel like I fall backward again.

I was asleep. And now I’m not. So I guess it will be a sleeping pill kind of night the second I hit post on this.

I have noticed over the past few months that it can sometimes be the most random things that will trigger my grief. I am okay-ish tonight but I still found my mind wandering due to some very random things.

Today I finally put some items in the mail that I had been procrastinating mailing but I don’t know why I hadn’t done it.

I did Bryce’s 2022 taxes in mid-February. I have had the paperwork sitting here read to mail because it has to be actually mailed with an extra form stating that I am authorized to file on his behalf. The envelopes have just been sitting here just waiting for the trip to the post office. I also had 3 letters ready to go for each of the 3 credit bureaus so they can put a block on his social so it can’t be used to obtain credit through fraud.

What is it about mailing those items today that hit me? I’m not NOT okay but what was it about dropping them in the mailbox at the post office that added to the finality? I don’t always understand why some of those random things add to the feeling of things being so final. The feeling that he truly is gone. It’s not like I don’t know that. It’s not like I have some delusion about him coming back.

So why does filing his taxes for him and sending those letters feel like another shove toward finality?

I’m still new in this process.

It was only 3.5 months ago that he was taken from me. From us. 15 weeks. 107 days. 2,565 hours.

Even though I am still new and fresh in this, I have learned a lot in the last 3.5 months. I have learned that it is okay to not be okay. I have learned that it is okay to cry.

I have learned that it is so fucking hard to deal with your own grief while also helping a child through their own. I have learned that it is okay to let that child see you vulnerable. It is okay to let that child see you cry. It is okay to let that child see you smile sometimes too.

I have learned that there is nothing wrong with being depressed or needing things like antidepressants or therapy.

I have learned that it is okay to still break down crying sometimes.

I have learned that it is okay to still be angry because fuck this life, fuck what happened, fuck the asshole who turned in front of my son, fuck grief, fuck PTSD, fuck depression, fuck anxiety, fuck insomnia, fuck this pain, fuck not having my son with me anymore.

I have learned that it is important to support those in pain and how horrible it is to be on the side who doesn’t get that support. I have learned that your blood family doesn’t always stand by you in your grief and sometimes the most support comes from your chosen family. Sometimes that even comes from people you used to hate or people who once hurt you horribly.

I have learned that it can sometimes be unexpected methods of processing that prove to be helpful…such as spewing all of my spastic thoughts on this blog. I have learned that even animals grieve the ones they loved. I have learned that it is okay to leave purple lights outside of my house for as long as I want.

I have learned that it is okay to not be ready to clean his room or empty his items from the medicine cabinet. I have learned that it is okay to still be wearing his shirts every day.

I have learned that I don’t think a day will go by that I won’t miss my baby. I hope I can make him proud of me. I hope I can do my part to make sure his memory lives on for as long as I do.

I think I’ve talked about this before. Maybe? I’m honestly not sure. My life has been a complete blur for the past 3+ months. Grief, mental health that seems to be bouncing up and down, working full time, full-time grad school, single parenting a 12-year-old, keeping a house in order, etc…and all on little sleep thanks to said grief…

Why is grief such a taboo topic? I do know it’s difficult to know what to say or do when someone you know or love loses someone THEY love. You don’t need the answers. Honestly, you don’t need to say anything.

You can send a text that you know we may or may not respond to with a basic message.

Something like “Thinking about you” or “Love you” or even just a heart emoji. That lets us know that we’re on your mind and that you care. It doesn’t have to be much. Honestly, we might not have the emotional ability to have a long conversation anyway. Doesn’t have to be anything time-consuming. And when family can’t even do that? It leaves you feeling like you don’t matter. Even with an apology. When the apology is followed by a “but” and excuses of being busy with XYZ issues. You’re so busy that you can’t even send a 2-second text? Or maybe another family member comparing their issues to your child who is now quite literally ashes in a fucking box and then has the nerve to say that YOU have the “audacity” to be upset? Not to mention accusations of things that didn’t even happen?

I can’t fathom acting in such a way if my loved one was going through this. Why is discussing grief so difficult for people? Why is surrounding those dealing with grief so difficult for people? Some of us can’t tolerate too much socializing during our grief process (cough*me*cough) but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to know that those who should love and support us care about us.

Please do not read this and think it means you need to justify why you don’t message more. I don’t want to upset those of you who DO reach out or even just acknowledge my pain.

For those I was speaking of in this post…if you keep reading these…to the overly dramatic one…I don’t want to hear from you. Your bizarre need to compare our issues was absolutely disgusting and the rest of what you said was either a flat out lie you told or someone lied to you. For the one apologizing…apologies are empty without action. “I’ve been busy” is a lame excuse. And I don’t regret a thing I said about the other person. You should be more upset about how that one treated me than you are about my being pissed about it. Her actions…or lack thereof…are of a person who obviously doesn’t give a shit about me or my kids. So I don’t ever want to hear from her again. She’s burned too many bridges with me over the years and this was the last one.

Just a lesson for everyone. Don’t abandon those dealing with grief. We are already struggling with loss. We are already struggling with seeing the world continue like nothing has changed when our world has changed so sharply. We are already struggling with being forced to continue on in a world without the one we are missing. We are already struggling with being forced to find a way to live past the grief. Feeling abandoned by those who should be there for us is not something that should be added to the list.

I’ve written in other posts about how I don’t have a traditional faith. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in heaven as it exists in the Christian faith. I don’t believe in hell as it exists to them.

However, I don’t know what happens after we die. Do we just stop? Does our consciousness exist somewhere once we die? As I have said before, I don’t know the answer to that question and I don’t feel that any of us know the answer. I want to believe that I will see my son again. I want to believe that when my time comes, he will be there waiting for me. Maybe waiting for me with my mom by his side. I would love that so much.

I will admit that losing my son has changed my views slightly. It hasn’t changed my views on a god or a stereotypical afterlife but it’s made me think more about what happens to us.

We have all seen so many signs of him. Purple in random locations. A single purple flower outside of one of his favorite restaurants. One of his friends being randomly handed purple flowers by a coworker. His girlfriend leaving a gathering with a bunch of Bryce’s friends and seeing a single streetlight shining purple light…not purple tinged…actually purple. So many things.

And then there are the items falling.

At his dad’s house, there is a family assignment board where each family member has a heart with their name and it hangs on their assignment for that night. One morning, Bryce’s stepmom was up early before anyone else and noticed that Bryce’s heart was on the floor…face up…far from the wall where the board was hanging. Had it just fallen, it would have been right by the wall where it was hanging as opposed to how far she found it. Plus how would it randomly fall? It was inside so there was no wind. No one was awake. There was no way to knock it off. I’ve seen it in person. You can’t knock it off as you pass, let alone knock it that far away.

And I’m not done yet. Carter has a shelf in his room with a teddy bear made from one of Bryce’s shirts (that I just found out actually belonged to his best friend but he always wore it because it was too big for his friend…sorry, Jeremy) and a pair of sunglasses that belonged to Bryce. He came home from school the other day and the sunglasses were on the floor. The bear was still on the shelf but the glasses were on the floor. Slamming the door wouldn’t knock them down. They weren’t precariously sitting there. They weren’t angled. But yet…they were on the floor.

Don’t forget the night that my weird ass cat wouldn’t stop staring at my doorway. The lights were all off in the house other than my tv. She just stared. Didn’t break eye contact from the doorway. When I sat up to look that way, it blocked her view and she moved around me and kept staring.

Oh, you thought I was done now? Nope. At big sister’s house, the shadow box she is working on now keeps falling over. It has done it multiple times. It is too heavy to just randomly tip over. Her kiddo isn’t touching it because that kid looked up to her Uncle Bryce so much so she doesn’t touch any of the “Bryce stuff” that her mom is putting together. But yet…it keeps falling over. And falling over where it shows the purple backing she is using.

Are these all just random occurrences? Is this just a bunch of coincidences?

OR is this my son? His spirit? His energy? What some people would think of as a soul? Whatever you want to call it. But all of these things we’re seeing…are they him saying “I am here with you”?

I don’t know. But I’d love to think so.

Sometimes I let myself daydream.

I daydream that Bryce will just come through the door at any minute. I daydream that I will wake up from this horrible fucking nightmare. I daydream that I won’t have this heavy ache in my chest any longer. I daydream that Carter isn’t struggling and withdrawn and dealing with the trial and error of finding the right medication to help him through this.

I daydream of running away. Taking Carter and just running. Somewhere where they don’t know me. Where I won’t have to walk past his room. Where I won’t have to drive through that intersection. Where I won’t have to go places that he has been. Touch things that he has touched. Maybe starting fresh will be good for him too.

Move away to California maybe? Somewhere close enough to the ocean to relax me. California and the ocean has always been my happy place. I don’t have any blood relatives here anyway. They live states away and my immediate blood family, with the exception of my dad, has pretty much stopped communicating with me anyway. So it’s not like getting further from them is a big deal.

But then I snap out of the daydream. I wake up and realize that it isn’t a nightmare. This is my life. I am still struggling. Carter is still struggling.

Bryce is still dead. My son won’t be coming through that door again.

And if I leave here now, I lose the closest thing to family that I have. I lose my best friend. All of my adopted kids. My crazy and bizarre extended family I found in Bryce’s dad and stepmom and their family. I lose my support system. Carter loses his support system.

I also won’t be close to the places Bryce has been…I wouldn’t be able to touch the things he’s touched…I wouldn’t be able to visit the spot where he took his last breath…I wouldn’t be able to hug Rory…I wouldn’t be able to hug his best friend…I wouldn’t be able to hug his siblings…

All of those things hurt like a fucking bitch sometimes but maybe they’re also somehow a help. Maybe they can help me heal. My new therapist tells me that I won’t “get over” this but I will someday learn to survive around it. Like life just grows around it. The thought makes me think of that old photo of a tree that grew around an old bicycle. The photo makes it look as if the bike is growing from the tree. But in actuality, the tree simply grew around it. So maybe the bike is grief and the tree is my life.

Maybe I will “run away” someday. When Carter is older. When I’m finished with my graduate degree. When I have had time to not feel like I need all of those people simply to survive.

But for right now, I need them. And I need to touch things my son touched and go places my son went. I just need to find a way to get my tree to grow around the bicycle.

I was looking in my pantry to grab a snack tonight and a bizarre thought came to mind as I grabbed a granola bar.

There are items in my pantry that have been there longer than my son has been gone. The big container of laundry soap is still the same that he last used. I’d bought a new one expecting us to need it soon but then we suddenly had one less adult doing laundry multiple times per week. So that same container of laundry soap is still there…almost gone but not quite.

I washed my car today. I’ve washed it since he’s been gone but today was the first day I found the motivation to clean out the inside and vacuum. It was a mess. But some of that mess on the floormats was mess that had been tracked into my car before he was taken…

I drove his truck for a short drive today. I’ve driven it a couple of times since he’s been gone. I’m the only one who’s driven it since he last did.

The small presents and stocking stuffers I had bought for him 4 days before his accident are still in my closet 3 months later. The presents are just new towels because he really needed them, a new candle for his room, and a Bluetooth shower speaker since he loved blasting music in the shower. He wanted money for Christmas to use to fix up the truck so I was going to do that too but I still wanted him to have a couple things to open on Christmas morning. There is still a bag with a few stocking stuffers, including the candy cane full of M&Ms and the Lifesavers StoryBook that I have gotten the boys every single year. My mom put those in mine as a kid so I did it for mine. Cheesy but it’s still just a fun and simple tradition that I started for them. It doesn’t feel right to use them but it doesn’t feel right to get rid of them. So it all still sits in my closet.

It might seem like I am just rambling here but it’s all just reminding me how life goes on for the rest of the world even though mine stopped cold. It reminds me how I have no choice but to continue living even though I have sometimes felt like it was pointless to do so. No parent wants to have to continue life without their child. I raised that boy for almost 20 years. The boy who made me a mommy.

He was a stubborn shit sometimes but he was the kind of stubborn shit who would do anything for those he cared about and loved. He dropped everything for his siblings. He dropped everything for his girlfriend. He had his friend’s backs. He loved hard. He had an amazing heart.

And today, he was able to help someone despite no longer being here. I won’t share the full details about the specifics because it isn’t my place but my girlfriend and I were talking about something going on between her and her daughter. I shared how Bryce did something similar to what she was telling me was going on with her daughter and how I learned to understand that it was simply how his mind processed information and then shared the wording that Bryce used to explain it to me. After my message, I was worried that I overstepped but then she said that it actually helped things click because what I said Bryce had said were some of the same things that her daughter had said. She later let her daughter read my message. Her daughter was so happy and said that that is exactly what she was trying to say but didn’t have the words for and wanted her mom to thank me and that she was so grateful for Bryce even though she never got to meet him.

I’m not going to lie and say that all of that didn’t bring some tears because what the fuck doesn’t now when it comes to Bryce-related topics? But they weren’t necessarily sad tears. It made me glad to see that he was still able to help someone, even if through me and even if not physically here any longer. Sharing something he shared with me helped a teenager feel more secure in their thought process. We all know that it’s hard enough being a kid. Having my kid help other kids makes me happy.

I miss the fuck out of him.

It is crazy how the day can just…shift…so fast.

I was okay. Spent the bulk of my day putting together new bedroom furniture for Carter that I bought with money I got from his big brother. Nothing fancy. Amazon, yo. But I was okay. He needs something good. Something new. His old mattress was a super old hand-me-down from Bryce.

Picked him up from school with a soda for a treat. We drive to his weekly therapy appointment. While waiting, we crack jokes about how long his hair is getting and how it almost looks like Bryce’s did when he was growing it out.

“Just without the beard and mustache”

Yep, kiddo. Just without the beard and mustache.

Then he keeps scrolling through all of my pics of Bryce. My albums always have a shit ton of photos of my kids…and the damn animals…but there are a ton of Bryce in there that I have added in the last 3 months. Some that his dad and stepmom sent me, some old ones of mine that I saved from old social media, some from Rory, some from his best friend Jeremy, and some from his phone. There are videos too.

Carter came across one video.

He noticed the date. December 23, 2022

He noticed the time. 7:54pm

He knows when the accident was. He knows roughly what time. He looked at me and said, “That was right before, wasn’t it?”

I won’t lie to him. Especially not about this. Grief for adults is hard. It’s harder for kids. I never hide my tears from him. I never hide when I’m struggling. I don’t hide the fact that I take antidepressants or that I now sometimes take something to help me sleep. Or that I’m now in therapy. It normalizes his new antidepressants and his sleeping aids. It normalizes his grief. His tears. His therapy. His bad days.

So now I am sitting in my car, crying. Because after he went into his session with tears on his face because he’d asked me more questions right before his appointment, I was stupid. It isn’t the first time.

I came out. Watched that video again. And again. And again. Even though Bryce is only telling John that he doesn’t listen, I wanted to hear his voice. Over and over.

And to solidify my stupidity, I watched the next video on my phone. I have seen it before. Many times, even though I shouldn’t.

I have them because friends of my son took photos and video of the accident scene that night, and I have them in case I need them for legal reasons. But this video pans. You see the car that pulled out in front of Bryce. Destroyed. Turned a complete 180 from the direction is was driving. And you can see Bryce. Covered with a sheet. With his leg exposed. The hairy, massive fucking tree stump of a leg that helped make my baby a towering 6’4″. A leg that I know was broken in the accident.

Seeing that fucking white sheet…I hate that I wasn’t there sooner to say goodbye while he was warm. I hate that I couldn’t touch his face…no matter how it looked. I am not a violent person but I’d have thrown a punch at the first officer who didn’t let me over to him before he was taken away. It would have been worth the assault charge.

My phone goes from a selfie, to a picture of the dog, to 2 political memes, to videos and photos off of Bryce’s phone an hour before his accident, to photos and videos of the accident scene, to a photo of the medical examiner slip.

Our lives changed instantly because of one man who didn’t look before making a left-hand turn.