The last few days have been extremely rough. I’m sure that the full moon has a lot to do with my melancholy state of affairs, along with trying to process the loss of my Son. I’ve cried a lot more than I want to admit over the last few days but with tears comes learning and healing.
You may ask what could I possibly be learning through my grief. The answer my friends is everything. I’m learning to live in the aftermath of tragedy because I’ve hit bottom and the only place to go is up. Now the hard part comes. I have to condition and train myself to reawaken the person I have always been. I will open my mind and heart to grief as if it were my best friend. I will have coffee with her, date her, share my heart with her and accept her into my heart as my partner in life. We will wade through the ups and downs with tears and laughter as we walk through life’s journey. As with any relationship we will have our differences. She will surface when I want to laugh. She will want to be in control when I’m in no mood for her shit. We will fight and struggle as most couples do. The goal will be simple, we will pace ourselves and let each of us take turns being the best of who we are. We will love each other to the best of our abilities.
I’m going to marry my grief so I can become a better person with her by my side. She will teach me just as I will teach her. There are no divorces when you marry your grief. This new life has only one way in and no way out. Once I sign the dotted line, I’m in it for a lifetime.
Where do we begin? It’s about coexisting in a world of love and pain and absorbing each other into one being. It’s about finding perfect balance. Today I will say I do to my new life. Together we will thrive as I teach her how to pace herself and she teaches me to cry and feel my way through this journey. Once joined we will become the warrior we were intended to be and the storms of life will melt in our strength.
– R. S. Ivany
Today marks 1 year and 1 month since my son Ryan left this earth. He was such a precious soul. Today I felt more alone and sad than usual, maybe it’s because I’m realizing that he’s never coming back and there is nothing I can do to change this reality. Maybe it’s just the passage of time or knowing that the world keep turning even though my son is gone. It still feels like it happened yesterday but in the same breath it feels like I haven’t seen him for a lifetime.
Today is January 20, 2019. It’s Sunday and most everyone know how much I dread this day of the week. Sunday’s have taken on a totally different meaning since April 22, 2018. That day was suppose to be just as every other Sunday. It should have been filled with the love of our beautiful family gathering together to share a wonderful Italian pasta and meatball dinner as we always did. That tradition came to a screeching holt that April morning. I received a phone call that changed the core of my being… the call that informed me my son had hung himself. So as you can see Sundays lack the meaning they once had. They lack the spontaneity and humor of my son Ryan. The other kids don’t even like coming to my house anymore because it’s riddled with their brothers memories. Everywhere they look he was. Everything they touch he has touched. Every step they take is a painful trudge down memory lane. They chose to avoids the home they grew up in to spare their pain. They prefer to stay in their own homes where memories are not as painful as those that were created in their childhood home. I still live in that home. I’m left to look at every square inch of it and there is no reprieve from the memories that paint my mind. It’s painful enough to known that he choose to leave us but it’s even more painful to come home to a silent home where all you have left are memories. I can’t run from them as my other children do. I’m stuck living inside of the halls and rooms of our home.
Honestly I never thought my life would end up as it has. I thought my three children would all watch me grow old and finally put me to rest.
Robin S. Ivany 