Trying to make sense of the life we’re living

When you become a parent, your heart expands to allow room for the love and joy your child brings into your life. It is a love that knows no bounds. You live and breathe for your child.

When that child is unhappy, your heart breaks. For many years, I lived that truth, with two offspring who took turns being depressed and, at times, suicidally so. I have always said that you are only as happy as your most unhappy child. I recall one time when both my kids were struggling. I felt as though I were drowning, struggling to find the surface so I could breathe again.

But, even with our struggles, I thanked my lucky stars every day for my beautiful little family. I also woke up every day for at least two years prior to her death, checking that Charlie was still breathing when I woke her every morning. As long as that were so, I knew we could face whatever challenges we met.

We have faced a lot of hard times in our family. But somehow we always came through it. As long as nothing went catastrophically wrong, I couldn’t imagine anything ever would. It was too far outside my lived experience.

Charlie’s death changed all that. My sister likens suicide to pulling the pin on a grenade or setting off a bomb. It certainly feels as though our reality was blown to smithereens by Charlie’s death. No longer do I live in the blissful unreality that everything will be okay in the end.

With Charlie’s death has come a great deal of soul searching. My family and I are rebuilding our fundamental understanding of ourselves and life. Our brains are no doubt building new neural connections and breaking old ones. We are literally not the same people we were on November 30th, 2021.

With all this internal turbulence, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to answer the often asked question, “how are you?”. Truthfully, I don’t know. I feel as though I am broken but somehow I still manage to put one foot in front of the other. That big space that grew in my heart when Charlie burst into this world is still there but it feels empty. I’m not miserable but neither am I happy.

After all, if you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child, how can you ever be happy again when your child is dead?