Life goes on...
by Jo Winkowitsch, in memory of Joslin

It may surprise you to know that as a bereaved mother, I sometimes forget that I am. I don’t forget Joslin, I just forget she is gone. What about you, do you forget sometimes? Denial blankets me at times, even after 10 Christmases celebrated without my dear daughter. It feels strange when I go to Walmart and see something she might have liked and I find myself carrying it to the checkout before I realize she is not here to enjoy the gift. I see someone who looks like her from the back and want to follow her around the store and pretend it is her. Think me insane? If you have lost a child, you probably understand. My sincere excuse is that sometimes our frail beings need a break from the awfulness of losing a child, and it is understandable that we might try to escape to a happier place and time where they lived and interacted with us.

Joslin was 20 when she died of bone cancer. I thought I would die of a broken heart, but here I am. In some ways, my heart is still broken and will always be. (Again if you have experienced the death of a child, you understand). But there is now a resigned acceptance in me of what has happened, (finally knowing there is nothing I can do to change it), and I have grown more used to her absence and to the pain of it. That's what I tell newly bereaved parents, that it will get better down the road because they will get more used to the pain and to their new lives. I am not sure that helps…but it is all I have.

Missing someone you love is one of the most difficult agonies there is, I believe. Friends may try to cheer you up and remind you that your loved one is in a better place, but the reality is, they are gone, and that hurts. It is the hurt that keeps on hurting. It is a chronic pain, and though we might hobble on in life, we find ourselves changed and carrying a burden we didn't desire. But we are forced to carry it. Some of our friends will understand, or at least try to. Others, who I call the “clueless,” will say well-meaning things and attempt to cure our pain. Some days I do better than other days, and those who know and love me accept that.

Joslin would have been thirty years old in January. I cannot imagine her that age. She was barely done being a teenager when she died… Now of course, she would have matured and maybe even had a family. She loved children. Those of you who have grandchildren from the child you lost, does it make it easier for you? Or do you look at the child and see your son or daughter? Is there a constant pain when you wonder what your child would have contributed to the lives of their children? I wonder about that sometimes.

I met a lady a few nights ago who lost her 40-something daughter recently… and I was reminded that no matter how long we have our children, when they die, it is too soon. It is so unnatural for a child to die first. My gravesite waits for me to be laid next to the body of my daughter… and I remember the last time I laid next to her on her bed the night before she died. It seems like just yesterday… and it seems like forever since that day. Time is disrupted when a child dies. Perhaps it will always be strange, and that is part of the "new normal" we must deal with.

Another year beckons… it will be incomplete for me because my family is incomplete and will always be. If you have lost a child you know the feeling. The beautiful blonde haired daughter who made me laugh and cry as she uniquely blessed my life is gone… Gone except for the times I get small glimpses of her in my mirror and for the times I hear her laugh when I am with my grandchildren… They are priceless Joslin rememberings for me And they will have to do, for now.

I count off another year… one more year without my child… one more year closer to heaven… and life goes on, now always colored with sorrow and with joy...

Dec. 2008