Avant-Propos
You know . . . you think you know a thing, all about a thing, all the angles on the thing when it's your own personal thing. And there's definitely no way you can tell me how to feel, how to react, how to process this terrible thing that I've experienced.
Unless, that is, it's your thing as well.
Deux
It was at least a year after we lost Joshua before I knew that one of my daughter's friends spent some time in a "safe place" because of what happened. She'd been there that morning, after the fact, and saw things from which she'll likely never free herself. It was so shocking for me to learn. Why hadn't someone told me sooner? Where is she now? Is she okay?
Later still, as Ethan was being enrolled for pre-K at the same school that Joshua had attended, I learned that Ethan would have the same teacher Josh had known and loved. And also that she'd had to take a year-long leave of absence when Joshua died.
The hardest one for me to hear, however, was Chandler's experience. He and I were alone together at the house that morning when my daughter called. (I still hear that call sometimes. Completely out of the blue. I can be driving along; it's a beautiful day; zero stress, then bam!1 "Mom!! Mommmm!!!")
I don't know how long it was just Chandler and me that morning as I was catapulted into that horror, snatched back and pummeled, over and over and over again. I don't know when my husband got home. I don't know where Chandler was the rest of that day. If I try to remember ~ and I really don't like to ~ I can only see myself on the floor, trying to twist myself into some alternate reality where it had not just happened.
And there was little three-year-old Chandler, witnessing it all.
Switchback
As I shared a couple of weeks ago in Panic At The Disco, my youngest grandson recently graduated from pre-k and I was not there. Chandler, however, did get to attend, and here are some things he said when he got home.
"Meme, they said my name on stage!"
"I wish you had been there."
"It's okay that you weren't."
"Really, Meme! They said my name!
They said that Ethan said that I am his best friend!"2
But the thing that really chokes me up is this: I was in bed pretty early that night ~ beginning to experience the physicality and brain haze that comes with a full-blown panic attack ~ when Chandler crawled into the bed, scooted up really, really close behind me, put his arm around me, and just stayed quietly there with me for a considerable amount of time. He never said anything and he left quietly and it's the only time he's ever done this (with me.) I knew (hazily) at the time that there was something very significant about this, but it was a couple of months later before I realized what exactly that was.
Back To Reality
Because of an entirely separate thing that's happened in the time since we lost Josh, Chandler wound up at our local Children's Advocacy Center to receive trauma counseling.3 Part of that process was for him to write his life story, hitting the high and low points and especially focusing on the source(s) of his trauma.
His counselor gave us a fair warning about a few particulars before the day that he read his story to us, so I was a tiny bit prepared to hear him read:
"I remember MeMe got a phone call and she fell on the ground and she started crying and screaming."
He stopped reading to ask, "Remember that, MeMe?"
"And then Pop came home, but I don't remember anything else about that day or when they told me that Josh had died."
And that's how I learned that Chandler's loss of Joshua trauma has been rooted in My Reaction to losing Josh.
He'd not only just lost his very best friend ~ which would take some time for his tiny heart and mind to comprehend ~ he also witnessed for too long a time and completely unequipped to emotionally process as his meme came completely unglued.
Now what?! To learn now, these years later, how deeply I've imprinted a terrible memory into his psyche is much to bear. How are any of us ever going to be okay?!
But we will be okay.
Ethan graduated in May and it's taken me three months to get this far with this one. But I'm here, and so is Chandler, and each of us is healing in our own ways.
It still doesn't feel quite finished, but if we're going to keep moving forward, then it's time to take the next step.
[Publish.]
His mom, Pop, and I left ours in the CAC rock garden.
***
1 Sometimes I think that beautiful, stress-free days actually Are the trigger because it had been such a lovely, peaceful morning
2 It's possible that I don't have the quote exactly right, but the idea of it remains.
3 Thank Jesus for the CAC
