Grief Doesn’t Follow a Calendar
By: Lynda Dietz
Tags: Family, Grief, Trisomy 13, Loss Of A Child, Parenting

Grief Doesn’t Follow a Calendar

Lessons learned from the loss of our child

Image credit: author

January 20th has, for the past 17 years, been a lousy day in our house. January 20, 2003, is when we lost our son. He was almost five years old when he died of complications due to Trisomy 13. Nothing alters a day on the calendar for the rest of your life like the day a family member dies.

Each year from then to now, the Christmas and New Year holidays have come and gone, and all of a sudden, there’s January, in all its crappy glory. We’re all coming down from a sugar high, needing to get back into a routine, fighting heavy snowfall, and dealing with full dark at 4:30 p.m.

And then comes the 20th. It wouldn’t be so bad if the day’s emotions were predictable from year to year.

Unfortunately, emotions are neither predictable nor controllable

We’ve marked the day in a variety of ways over the years. Most of the recent years have been more of a quiet glance between my husband and me, sharing a thought here or there, or texts and hugs throughout the day.

I’m not sure if our now-adult children remember the exact day or not, or if they consciously think about it in the same way we do. It affected them all as siblings, but they were so young (9, 7, and 2) that I’m sure the specifics are lost to them.

I find myself marking the day on the calendar in the same way I mark all our birthdays: with a heart drawn around the date. I’m not sure why I do that, since it’s not really a celebration per se, and I’m certainly not likely to forget it if it doesn’t have that heart around the “20” — but the new calendar gets put in place and there it is.

This year, I feel motivated to write about it

I’ve felt a sort of melancholy, even after so many years. It’s an odd perspective. Some years have been easier, some harder. I guess this year has brought a lot of introspection.

Maybe it’s because we’re getting older and we tend to think back more often. Feeling our own mortality, or the realization that there aren’t as many years left as we’ve already used up.

Maybe it’s because our younger son is married, the older son most likely will be by the end of this year, and our daughter will be 20 this summer. I can’t help but wonder what our lives would be like right now if our youngest son had lived to see his twenty-second year.

The “I wonder” thoughts are wasted, though

The reality is that with a chromosomal disorder like Trisomy 13, our son would most likely not have survived many more years than the ones we’d already enjoyed with him. Most children born with an extra 13th chromosome don’t survive their first year, in fact, so we were already on borrowed time.

Even so, there were so many good things that came from his life, for us and others, that I can’t allow the melancholy to linger too long. I’ll write more about those moments another time. Today is not the day to revisit the day-to-day joys and struggles.

Today is a day of reflection as I mourn my little boy

Looking back has shown me that no experience is ever wasted, whether good or bad, precise or all-encompassing. Treasure all of them; store them in your heart, because it makes the reflection that much more precious.

The pain of losing him has never lessened, and I’m quite sure it will never go away. Even after 17 years, a song or photograph can bring me to tears unexpectedly.

However, pain is blurred on the edges a bit, not because I feel it less but because (I think) I’ve learned how to deal with it better as each year has passed.

I don’t wallow in sorrow. But every year on January 20th, I remember every detail with the clarity that can only come from a traumatic event like that, and I remind myself that there were good moments that can never be taken away, no matter how many years fill the gap between then and now.

Each day, each week, each month, each year has shown me how God used that time in our lives in a way that will never be duplicated and that revelation has turned my grief into wonder.

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