Lament: A Cry of Sorrow and Grief

There is no more drama. No more life hanging in the balance. Nothing to report. Life goes on. I still hate every morning that I awaken to find that this nightmare I am living is real. That my beautiful son is still dead. I look over at the wall. There are two photo frames, they each hold graduation pictures, graduation announcements, and name cards that explain the meaning of the names "Nickolas" and "Sara." Every morning I have to look at those two frames and know that my daughter's life continues to move forward, while my son's is over. Living with memories is a great idea, but, it is basically a bunch of bullsh*t. YOU live with the memories! I want my son back. I know people must be tired of hearing all this by now. I really don't care. Please just stop reading and go away if that is the way you feel. I don't want to be told what I should do. Unless you have lost your child your opinion on my lamentation is not welcome here. I am doing the best I can. Maybe that is not good enough for some people who make judgements where they ought not. The struggle to continue on through each day of this life is hard enough. I will figure something out on my own timetable. Please don't accuse me of thinking I am alone in this misery, I know I am not; but, you, YOU, are not in here with me unless you have lost your child. The dues for this club are quite expensive and you do not want to join this club. Excuse me if I don't feel very positive right now. Positive is getting out of bed every day and facing a world that is empty without my son. Positive is living with the cowardice of living. Positive is trying to find comfort in butterflies and rainbows, and spinning tales of honor and memory and trying to pretend that this is somehow an OK replacement for my living and breathing son. Positive is biting my tongue when some insensitive person tries to tell me what I should be doing to move on, get over it, move past it, and generally act like it is all OK that Nickolas is gone forever. When your child dies it feels like you have just been sentenced to life in prison. Can anyone understand that? How long will it be before I can see my boy again? Will I ever see him again? What can I do to take away this pain? I have no answers, only tears and the endless days of longing to have my son back here where he belongs.

Edward Hirsch wrote the following in an article about grief entitled "To Go Its Way in Tears: Poems of Grief. "We live in a superficial, media-driven culture that often seems uncomfortable with true depths of feeling. Indeed, it seems as if our culture has become increasingly intolerant of that acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to medicate such sorrow away. We want to divide it into recognizable stages so that grief can be labeled, tamed, and put behind us. But poets have always celebrated grief as one of the deepest human emotions. To grieve is to lament, to mourn, to let sorrow inhabit one's very being." Below a poem written by Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno.

Death Barged In

In his Russian greatcoat
slamming open the door
with an unpardonable bang,
and he has been here ever since.

He changes everything,
rearranges the furniture,
his hand hovers
by the phone;
he will answer now, he says;
he will be the answer.

Tonight he sits down to dinner
at the head of the table
as we eat, mute;
later, he climbs into bed
between us.

Even as I sit here,
he stands behind me
clamping two
colossal hands on my shoulders
and bends down
and whispers to my neck,
From now on,
you write about me.