How easy would it be if life were all black or white? If when we have to make a decision there was no dithering or vacillating between options. Life can be very confusing at times, difficult and scary. Sometimes we just need to be told what to do because making any decision is simply too hard.
This week marks the twenty third anniversary of Kelly’s death. A milestone I would rather not have to deal with. Still when I look back over these years, I consider that I’ve navigated them reasonably well.
There were decisions made in the early years after her death that were probably not good ones, but they were made with the best of intentions and with the life-fog that accompanied me everywhere. Life was difficult because I’d just lost my youngest child and I really didn’t know how to cope with it all. I can look back now and see with much more clarity. Still I did what I could with what I had at that time.
Today I allow myself some self-compassion for the person I was back then. I operated under a cloud of grief — in a world that was grey — neither black nor white.
I was sucked into that grey of grief and that is not a great place to be. Now that I’m a lot older — and hopefully wiser now, I can see that it is useless to beat myself up for those mistakes I made in the early years after Kelly died.
There really isn’t any manual to tell you how to operate after the death of a child. Sure there are groups you can join where you get the chance to talk about your issues. Or therapy is another option. But you really cannot see that there is a problem when you are knee deep in it. It is simply your world.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing — twenty twenty vision in fact, yet we are only blessed with that much later — when it is too late. I look back at that person and feel compassion for her. It is okay to be stressed sometimes, in fact it is a normal part of life. Yet we tend to want to do things perfectly which is really difficult to do. (I belong to the era where there were no smartphones to record all the stupid things we did — I’m sure some of them would widen our children and grandchildren’s eyes with shock.)
So as a grown-up now, I can look back and show myself some compassion, give myself the proverbial hug and count my blessings. There are so many things I can be grateful for and the future is something to look towards with great excitement and anticipation.
And yes I do realise that there will never be any black or white solutions for me, and all I can do is the best at the time with what I have — and of course those friends and family who have been there for me through the thick and the thin of life.