My son is home. I hear his keys in the front door. He opens it and says, “Hey Mom!” He shuts the door behind him, and I wake up. I can’t breathe. The bed sheets are suffocating. I sit up but still can’t breathe. The room is too small. I am panicking and quickly get up and go downstairs. The house is too small, so I run outside. I’m hyperventilating now. The world is too small. There is just not enough air. 

            Oh, dear God! Please help! 

Eventually, it passes. I go back upstairs and get back into bed. It’s the middle of the afternoon. But, just wait. Wait until night comes. Like falling into a deep pool and sinking to the bottom, the darkness will press heavily against me. Evan is home. He casually walks up the stairs and approaches the bed. The room fills with his familiar, boyish scent. I wake up. His scent is still there. The nights are unbearable.

Family has returned to their homes. Friends have returned to their lives. My son’s ashes sit on the mantel. A boyfriend tries to hang on, but I successfully shut him out. Each day, I lay in bed in a dark room, afraid of the coming night. Occasionally, I can’t stand to be in bed anymore and go downstairs to lay on the couch instead. I have no strength, not to eat or shower or read or pray.

I think about the last time I saw Evan. I brought takeout sushi home for us after work. We ate at the table talking about our day. We had started a monopoly game the night before. I had purposely forgotten to collect my $200 when I passed GO!, and I halved how much money he owed when he landed on my properties. I was still beating him pretty badly, but he didn’t care. He said he wanted to continue our game after dinner. The gameboard was still set up on the ottoman. Evan’s new puppy came tearing through the family room at full speed. He jumped up onto the ottoman sending money and playing cards flying everywhere. We moved the game to the dining table, safely out of puppy reach. After an hour or so, Evan is about out of money. He’d landed on one of my properties again, and this would be the end of the game for him. I was trying to decide how to respond, because I didn’t want the game to be over. I’m looking down at the rent amount when someone says, “Mom, I’m tired.” Who was that? It did not sound like my son. His voice, his tone, his words were strange. I looked up at him and examined his face. My face must have given away my confusion, because after what seemed like a very long time, he added “… of sweating and shaking all the time.” I told him, “I know, hon.” I went into mom-mode, spouting off what we could try next to help him. Another dermatologist, another counselor, another this, another that. Nothing right.

It came time for him to go. He hugged me tight like he always did, my cheek pressing hard against his chest, his chin resting on top of my head. His hugs were the best in the world. If only I knew, I never would have let him stop. I watched him walk down my front steps. If only I knew, I never would have shut the door behind him.

I figure out why I can’t breathe. There is a hole in my chest. A huge, gaping hole. It feels raw and exposed. The pain it causes is something I have never felt before. I start to think that, if I am unable to catch my breath during a wave of panic, that will be okay. The effort is taking more energy than I have anyway. 

I barely notice the weeks slipping by. I’m actually a little annoyed now that my last breath hasn’t happened yet. I am so tired of how this feels. I don’t think I can take much more, but, fine. I will wait. And then, through no effort of my own, something begins to happen. Lying there in the dark room, the hole in my chest is gradually patched up with something that feels like being held and gently rocked to sleep. Comforting, peaceful, quiet, loving. And the patch isn’t just a thing in and of itself. It is a small part of something beyond, a gateway to something so much greater. My son is there in the beyond. Not in a dream, but in this great place of comfort and unconditional love. I somehow know this without a doubt. Like someone just placed the knowledge in my head without my having to think it. 

I am no longer overwhelmed. The waves of panic have stopped. The hole in my chest and its pain are still there and always will be. But it is filled in with something much greater than it. It took me almost a year to understand what it was that I experienced in the depths of my despair. I will share it with you in my next post. I have suffered a great tragedy that is every parent’s worst nightmare. But I am no more or less special than anyone else. I say this so that you will understand - what I have experienced is available to you too. All you need to do is believe.

Photo by Nicole Blevins 

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