Fourteen years ago, on July 27th, Josh celebrated his eighteenth birthday. At that time, it seemed to Josh as though his life was just beginning. Dreams, hopes, and a future of promise were on the horizon. The excitement of reaching adulthood, the freedom to make his own choices without momma looking over his shoulder, and a decent paycheck in faraway Colorado all looked like a young man’s dream. Every good momma worries when her children leave home, and I was no exception. I knew my son's weaknesses and that those weaknesses made him vulnerable.
Josh was not like any other.
He was a deep thinker and observed the world through a different lens. This led him to be the child the others picked
on at times when he was younger. His big
sister stood up for him and ran interventions with the bullies until he got
bigger than her. Then she couldn’t be so
obvious about it. I am sure, however, she secretly still
threatened his tormentors with retaliation if they didn’t leave her brother
alone. As a younger child, Josh was taunted
and pushed by an adult male who was the most important person in his life. He was taught by word and example that boys must
be tough, they must be mean, and they must stand up and fight. How hard that must have been on such a gentle
soul, for Josh was none of those things. The gentleness of Josh’s spirit and
his uniqueness made it so difficult for him to adapt and
survive this world.
On his birthday, I cannot help but remember the pride I felt
when I looked at his newborn face. He looked
like a shriveled-up old man and I remarked as much as I held him for the first
time. He was born an old soul on his Grandpa Holbrook's birthday and named after his two great-grandfathers, Joshua and Marlin. He was an easy child, hardly ever crying, almost
always accommodating to the wishes of his mother and the other adults in his
life. He was a little lazy compared to
the rest of us who were always rushing around to check off another task on our to-do list. He left things undone and he just
didn’t care. No amount of discipline
seemed to phase him when he was stuck in his ways. It’s because he was always inside his own
head, sorting things out. Who has time for such trivial things as making one’s
bed or picking up one’s toys when such interesting thoughts are going on in
one’s brain? He could watch a
documentary just once and repeat all the pertinent information back as if he
had been studying a particular subject for years. He accomplished this as a five-year-old, but
he could not learn to recognize his letters.
I had taught his sister to read when she was four, but Josh would look
at the letters of the alphabet like they were out to destroy him. As he gazed in trepidation at the flashcards, he would suck in his breath with the resignation of someone who is
fighting a losing battle, and nothing would come from his lips, no matter how hard I would coax and encourage. I would later learn that he was dyslexic and had differences that kept him from learning in the traditional manner of
his peers. I fought hard for my
boy. I went to the schools and demanded
an individualized learning program (IEP) that would give Josh the tools he
needed to shine, and he did! For several
years, his ability to listen to lectures and retain information provided him
with the only tools he needed to make excellent grades. The catch was that he had to have tests read
to him and he would give verbal answers to those questions rather than
write them down. Otherwise, he would get confused and fail miserably. He tolerated this arrangement for which I
fought until he reached a certain age that made him stand out even more to his peers. Then,
probably because of taunting from classmates, he started taking failing grades on
tests rather than having the tests read aloud by an aid.
Even though Josh struggled to read, he loved books. It took him much longer than others to finish
a book, but he chose the most difficult topics and books with detailed plots. He also loved to write and aspired to publish a
book. I still have the detailed preliminary
notes to a fantasy story he was planning.
His notes remind me of JRR Tolkien, and the detailed world Tolkien
plotted and documented for his fantasy novels.
Josh spent his entire life
being pushed to be something he was not and trying to fit into a world in which
he was a stranger in so many ways.
Although I don’t know and will never know the exact details of the night
of my son’s death, I do know that my son’s differences are what made him a target. He became a young man manipulated, bullied, and destroyed so that a predator could experience a sick sense of power. I
have hope that future generations will take to heart the advancements made on the importance of diversity and
inclusion for all people regardless of our differences, but that acceptance and inclusion of
differences were not available to my son.
Josh’s birthday might be even
more difficult for me, as a grieving mother, than facing the date of his
death. I brace myself for the day we
celebrate his birth, knowing that I will crumble into a heap and release the
pain yet once again. In the early days
after Josh’s death, sharing the journey was a way of working on the healing
process. I’m at a different place in my
grief journey now, and I prefer to keep most of my feelings inside me. There’s only so much a grieving mother can explain
about the daily pain with which she lives.
People get tired of hearing about someone else’s grief. So what compels me to write about this grief once
again, fourteen years after the last birthday Josh celebrated on this
earth?
When my son died, I felt
that anytime I could ease someone else’s suffering on this earth, I would be
honoring Josh’s spirit. I would, in some
manner, keep him alive on this earth through the good deeds I would do in his
memory. Some of the ways I have reached
out in service have been broadcasted, such as the charitable work we were able
to do in Guatemala with the help of family friends, and even strangers. I wanted the world to know Josh’s name and
honor his memory. Other acts of kindness have been done in secret, quietly, and
only I have known the reasons I was propelled to go the extra mile to help
someone. Another way I have vowed to
honor my son’s life is to live mine to the fullest. Most days I want to crawl back under the
blankets, cover up my head, and pretend the world doesn't exist. Instead, I live my life because
my son has been denied his. That’s not to say that I don’t have days I allow
myself to crawl back in bed or spend the day crying in pain, but I don’t stay
there. Josh’s spirit propels me forward
to seize each day and find joy in it. The
third way I vowed to remember my son, was to face his death with honesty and to
share my journey with others. This is
the reason I am compelled to continue writing from time to time about the things I
would rather keep inside my heart. A
writer seeks to put sometimes difficult thoughts into words in such a way that those
words become relatable to the reader.
While I know the entirety of my grief journey isn’t relatable to most
(and I am thankful for that!), I do know that some of what I have experienced is
relatable to anyone who suffers grief from a variety of causes.
Therefore, today I am writing in honor of Josh’s birthday. I am writing in memory of my gentle son who was not perfect but was still a beautiful and precious soul. He had value and his life retains that value even today in the absence of his physical body. I am writing to encourage others, regardless of the origin of the grief carried in their heart, to crawl out from under the blankets each morning even if that’s all they can do. I know the aloneness felt by someone suffering such grief. I know how grief can alienate couples and drive a wedge between families. I know how grief changes the griever and those observing are left with a different person from the one they knew previous to the loss. I know what it means to work until you are exhausted just so you don't have to think about the pain and how that pain somehow persists even as the griever wearily ends another day. I know how grief encourages us to make poor decisions about our bodies and our lives. I know how it makes the world seem as if it keeps moving forward while the griever forever remains, at least a tiny bit, rooted in the past. I know what it means to need to reach out and comfort others who are hurting even though one does not know the way. I know what it means to isolate oneself because one tiny bit of sadness added to what already exists is enough to push one into having a nervous breakdown. I know what it's like to sleep too long or not enough. I know how the days of pain grow until they become months and then years and finally decades. I can recognize the pain of the grieving and I want those who are grieving to realize they are not alone.
You, reader, are not alone. Somehow, I hope you can find comfort in that.
One baby step at a time we walk this journey of grief. Some days we slide backward, lose gained ground, and must walk the same steps all over again, That's ok. Our loved one’s memories are worth the effort to keep on trying to live our lives to the fullest to honor theirs.