Author Archives: Emily Eaton

Today I had lunch with a dear friend who also has had more than her share of loss this year. One of the things we talked about is how frequently we are asked, “How ARE you?” — usually with a concerned facial expression and tilt of the head.

Or worse, “Hey! How’s it going?” — followed by a facial expression that says, oh crap I totally forgot her son just died and of course she’s not doing ok and I can’t believe I just asked her that question.

And it happens on my side of the question, too. Someone will ask me how I’m doing, and out of pure habit I answer, “Great! How are you?” And then I’m sure my facial expression says, oh crap of course I’m not ‘great’ and now I probably look like I’m either totally lying or totally in denial and I don’t want to correct myself now but I feel awkward and I just want to change the subject.

The real answer is, I’m ok. And devastated. And fine. And heartbroken. And motivated to make the most of life. And exhausted. And excited about being back at work. And struggling to stay focused. And a million other emotions. I’m ALL of these things. Sometimes all at once, sometimes a different one every ten minutes.

I’ve decided that the best question for someone to ask me is, “How are you, today?” That’s usually a question I can answer. And more and more often, the answer is genuinely, “Today, I’m doing well.”

Because the reality is, I do have good days. Maybe not “great” days, but certainly not the can’t-get-out-of-bed days that I would have expected someone who just lost a child would have. Until that someone was me.

Because now I realize, you just don’t know how much you can live through until you have no choice. I can’t choose to bring Julian back to life, but I can choose to honor his life and his memory by working hard on my healing journey. I can choose to not get stuck in the deep well of grief. I can choose to aggressively pursue a future that is filled with happiness and joy.

I know that eventually I’ll be able to honestly answer, “Great!” when someone asks me how I’m doing. But in the meantime, if you run into me (or anyone else in your life who is grieving), don’t ask “How ARE you?” Instead, ask: “How are you… today?”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to post a comment or just let me know you were here, click the “Comment” link below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

If you’d like to send me a private message, use the comment box but start with the word “Private.”

As committed as I am to find joy again, I have often struggled to find balance between moving *forward* (bringing my memories with me) and moving *on* (leaving my memories behind).

There are benefits of both. On one hand, I want to always remember the wise but mischievous twinkle in Julian’s eyes, and his sweet voice asking me to “go fast like a jet!” when he wanted me to do something quickly. On the other hand, I’d be happy to forget the details of his terrifying last day in the hospital when I was totally and utterly powerless to help my son.

Then yesterday, it hit me. The way to find the balance between moving “forward” and moving “on” is to make the distinction between “mourning” and “suffering.” When something reminds me of Julian (as many things do), sometimes it makes me smile and sometimes it makes me sad. If I start feeling sad, I ask myself, am I remembering something positive about him, and mourning that loss? Or am I suffering because I’m re-living something painful?

So far, this technique has made a big difference for me. Happy memories are great, and deserve to be contemplated and carried forward into the future. But when I recognize that I’m suffering, I force myself to think about something else, something that I love remembering about Julian. I choose to move “on” from the suffering memories. Those can stay in the past, they don’t serve me now.

I give myself permission to release and move *on* from the memories that make me feel sorrow or suffering. Besides, I have plenty of wonderful memories to bring *forward* with me into the future.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to post a comment or just let me know you were here, click the “Comment” link below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

If you’d like to send me a private message, use the comment box but start with the word “Private.”

My husband and I own a consulting firm together, so when we experienced this personal loss, it rippled through our professional lives as well. Many of our clients are also people we consider as friends, and it was wonderful to receive their support through emails, cards, and attendance at Julian’s Celebration of Life.

Our firm publishes a monthly newsletter article, and after some discussion, we decided that the April article would be a case study about how John and I used social media tools to communicate about Julian’s diagnosis, treatment, and death. (You can read my newsletter article on the firm’s website.)

I received an email from a friend and fellow business owner, who asked me, “Can you tell me about your decision to bring your story to your clients in your company newsletter?” I thought about it for a few minutes, then replied to my friend:

There were a few reasons why we decided to share this on the EG site. It kind of started with the “baby wall” in the office kitchen. The photo of Julian was about 2 years old (I’d been meaning to update it forever), so I took it down and had to decide what to do. Leave him off the wall to avoid people asking questions about him? Use a recent photo, and treat him the same as all the other kids? Put up the keepsake photo we passed out at his Celebration, which will draw attention to his story and could make people uncomfortable when we give tours?

Ultimately, John and I together decided to go with the latter… the keepsake photo. We decided, this is part our lives now. If we start “hiding” it, or start making decisions based on other people’s potential discomfort, we’d never be able to stop. And, why should we hide it?

So then, we gave a tour. When we were in my office, one of our clients saw my set of framed photos of the boys and said, “Oh! Are those your kids?” I knew these moments would happen, but this was the first time. “Yep!” I answered, then walked out of the room and took the group quickly through the kitchen, hoping no one would notice the keepsake photo. They didn’t.

So after that day, again we needed to make a decision. Let the topic come up organically? Or just put it out there and get it over with, proactively? Again, we chose the latter. Most of our current clients already know, anyway.

Ultimately, even though John and I are introverts, sharing the story in a personal but appropriate way was more consistent with the EG brand.

After this month, our newsletter will move on to a less personal topic. But for now, anyone who visits the firm’s website is invited to read our story. There really isn’t a line between personal and professional for us, and that’s just fine.

We want to integrate Julian’s memory into as many parts of our lives as we can.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to post a comment or just let me know you were here, click the “Comment” link below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

If you’d like to send me a private message, use the comment box but start with the word “Private.”

Today we returned from our first family vacation as a family of three — a spring break trip to Palm Springs that we planned months ago, then canceled when we got Julian’s diagnosis, then un-canceled a couple of weeks ago. It was also a crash course in how to go into a restaurant and say, “table for three.”

I’ve been focusing so hard on what I consider to be the “big” things, like donating most of Julian’s toys and clothes, I hadn’t really prepared myself for the “little” things, like asking for a table at restaurant. Or realizing that when I canceled Julian’s airplane ticket, I didn’t ask the agent to make sure we ended up with three seats together. So instead, we ended up with two aisles and a window.

On both flights, I had to ask the person assigned to the middle seat if they’d mind taking the other aisle seat, so we could have the row of three. Of course I didn’t say out loud the rest of the sentence that was automatically completed in my head: “…because this middle seat was originally assigned to our other son, who died a month ago.”

On the flight out to CA, I was able to focus on the positive. I noticed that it was sort of nice that we had a row to ourselves, and I had the luxury of sitting by the window instead of how we often used to arrange ourselves, with me in the middle seat between the two boys, and John across the aisle.

But on today’s flight home, I wasn’t prepared for how that same conversation with a stranger would make me cry through the take-off and most of the rest of the flight.

Even thinking about it now makes me aware, again, of the challenge of wanting to move forward *and* wanting to honor him. I so easily become critical of myself — how can I sit here, enjoying the window seat, when I’d give anything to have HIM sitting here, and me complaining about getting stuck in the middle seat?

And that’s just the thing. Of course I’d rather have him here. Of COURSE. I’m not trying to convince myself that we are somehow better off now, because we can fit in one row on an airplane.

But, the fact is, there will be some nice things about being a family of three. And I have to remind myself that it’s ok to notice this. I have to literally give myself permission.

So, I’m doing that now: I give myself permission to miss him terribly, and cry through a 3-hour plane ride, and enjoy the view from my window seat.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to post a comment or just let me know you were here, click the “Comment” below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

If you’d like to send me a private message, use the comment box but start with the word “Private.”

Sometime in the first two weeks after Julian’s death, I remember asking a friend, “what are the 5 stages of grief, again?” My expectation was that I could check them off, one by one, and track my progress toward the last one, “Acceptance.”

Turns out, the “5 stages of grief” aren’t as applicable to my situation as I thought. They have been taken out of context and oversimplified and generalized. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s research focused on the stages a terminally ill patient went through as they prepared for their own death, not 5 linear stages in which humans process death and loss.

This was news to me, and somewhat frustrating. I like to plan, and I’m good with a to-do list. I wanted a checklist that I could work through. Turns out, grief has an infinite number of stages, and comes in waves.

Sometimes those waves can knock you right off your feet. But also, sometimes the waves just gently roll over your feet, reminding you they are there without disrupting your balance at all. Usually, my personal waves of grief are somewhere in between.

Sadly, based what I’ve read in books and blogs written by parents who have lost children, some parents wake up every morning and get pummeled by those waves all day long. They seem to accept these crushing waves as their new reality, their life sentence.

I don’t want to be one of those parents.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to send me a note or just let me know you were here, click “Leave a comment” below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

Losing a child is almost unspeakable in our culture. There isn’t even a word for it. A person who loses their spouse is a widow or widower. A person who loses their parents is an orphan. But a parent who loses a child is… a parent who loses a child.

One of the first steps in any recovery process is to name it, to own it. Yet I’ve noticed that in subtle and non-subtle ways, there are signs all around me saying “you are experiencing hell on earth, and you will never ever EVER recover.”

This is a parent’s worst nightmare. And as human beings, we get so easily paralyzed by fear. Most parents (including myself, 6 weeks ago) tell themselves, “If my child died, I would die. I would just DIE. I could not survive.” Yet here I am, surviving.

It turns out that when my worst fear became my reality, I changed, but I didn’t die. I feel like there’s a part of me that died – the same part of me that grew when Julian was born. How could it not? Physically and energetically, he was created inside of me. I carried him for 9 months, and when he was born, something was born inside of me too. Now this “something” inside of me has been replaced with a hollow emptiness that is similar to what I imagine an amputee feels. The me I used to be is now missing something profound – but the me I used to be didn’t cease to exist.

I don’t expect to “recover” as in, “get back to the way things were.” But I do expect to move forward. I want to cherish my memories of Julian, and honor his life by bringing those memories forward with me into my “new normal” – which will include joy and love and happiness. Because that’s what I’m determined to create for myself, and my family.

But why do I feel like this is a controversial perspective? Why do I feel that I have to be careful who I say that to, and how I say it?

I plan to explore that more in this blog.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to send me a note or just let me know you were here, click “Leave a comment” below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

I have skimmed, or started and abandoned, many books that talk (and talk… and talk…) about how horrible it is to lose a child. I know how hard it is. I’m living my own worst nightmare right now. But reading about the horribleness of it isn’t helpful to me.

I would have expected that, given how horrible this experience is, there must be people out there writing books and blogs about, “it’s horrible… and here is my story of how I moved forward from that experience.” But, no. Not that I’ve found so far.

I recently skimmed a book called “New Normal” (selected based on it’s title, which is obviously similar to the title of this blog). It had a section on specific losses: spouse, parent, friend, job, pet. No section on losing a child. What? The author included job and pet, but not child? At the back of the book, a Q&A section included a question about that, and the author basically said that the loss of a child was too significant to summarize in a few paragraphs. I think that was a total cop-out.

Losing a child is something that no one wants to talk, think, or write about it. But it doesn’t change the fact that there are people like me who need inspiration, motivation, and hope that the future can be better than the present.

Where are the messages of hope? What are the techniques for cherishing my son’s memories, and bringing them forward with me into a future that includes joy and happiness again?

I’m determined to find them.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to send me a note or just let me know you were here, click “Leave a comment” below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.

Four weeks ago today, my son died of cancer. Six weeks ago, my son was diagnosed with cancer. Seven weeks ago, cancer was something that impacted other families. Not our family. We are healthy!

Before all this, the only time anyone in my family had spent time in a hospital was when our 2 babies were born. My youngest, Julian, had never even had a need for antibiotics in his life. Until… cancer. Julian was diagnosed with leukemia on 2/16/11, and died 15 days later. That was four weeks ago.

Four weeks. One full cycle of the moon. An eternity, and a blink of an eye. How much grieving can happen in a month? How many tears can be shed? A lot. A whole lot. And how much can I read and learn about grief? Again, a whole lot.

I’ve devoured books, websites, and blogs. I’ve talked and talked… to my husband, my parents, my friends, and professionals. I’ve been seeking something, anything, to help me make sense of this and learn how to move forward.

In these four weeks of grieving and seeking, I’ve learned a few things that surprised me:

1. The “5 stages of grief” aren’t applicable to me.
2. Many books have been written about losing a child, but most are focused on the loss itself.
3. I’m not so sure our culture wants us to move forward after such a loss.

Four weeks. I can’t believe it’s already been four weeks. And also, I can’t believe it’s only been four weeks. These were the first four weeks of the rest of my life. The first four weeks of the “after.”

So what comes next? What comes after the “after”?

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

I’d love to know who visits my blog, and I’d especially like to know if you have any thoughts or comments about it. If you’d like to send me a note or just let me know you were here, click “Leave a comment” below to get access to a comment box and a “like” button. Just like on Facebook, you can “like” the post as a method of saying hi.