Letting Go. Or Not.

 

Yesterday was surgery day for my older son. We were at the same hospital where Zane spent his last days of life. Shit, was that hard! All sorts of feelings surfaced, and I had to stuff them down throughout the day. The last thing my living kiddo needed was a mom bursting into tears while he was experiencing anxiety of his own. I had to throw the brave-face on. I’m pretty flipping good at it. 

Yet there were moments of laughter when we joked about directing the surgeon into our room with one of those business-twirling arrows and then accidentally knocking him out with it, because we were so inept at twirling, that he couldn’t perform the surgery that day. 

But then the sobriety kicked in. 

During pre-op, when my son stepped out of the room, I turned to the surgical PA. “Be sure to take extra care of him during surgery,” I said. Then I back-pedaled a bit. “I mean, I know you’ll take care of him, but I lost my younger son three years ago, and he’s all I have left. So I really need you to take care of him.”

This was not a cry to sympathy. (In fact, when people offer up their I’m sorrys and their pitying looks, it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Mostly because I rarely want any focus on myself and my feelings out in the real world). No, this was a genuine plea to take care of my kid. Because I know what happened last time when Zane’s life was put in their hands. He died. And a small part of me will always ascribe some blame to them for it—warranted or not. 

The PA said she would definitely take great care of him, and she and the surgical team did. The operation went smoothly. 

But being there…being there was hard on so many levels. And though part of me is happy I will never have to step foot in the place again, another part of me grieves the loss of that, too. It’s another piece of letting go—something I admit I am highly resistant to. I know for a fact, I will never fully let go of Zane while I still walk the face of this earth. And I won’t fully accept that he’s gone either. Take from that what you will. Arm-chair diagnose me with the DSM’s new disorder called Prolonged Grief (which is an utter bullshit diagnosis when you lose a child) if you must, but I will never completely accept it. If I did, it might destroy me. 

So while I was at the hospital, I revisited the times I was there with Zane: the hallways we walked, the parking issues we had while we were there, the elevator ride). While I ate alone in the cafeteria with a complementary meal voucher from surgery, I traveled back in time to all the moments my husband, older son, and I ate together while Zane was upstairs in a room—often in the ICU. This time I was doing it completely alone after leaving my kid upstairs in surgery. I’m learning that alone is a common thread after grief—even with so many other people in the world. I’m learning to grow comfortable with alone. 

I’m learning to walk the world without him. Even though I feel as if I’m simply going through the motions most of the time. 

So the children’s hospital is in my rear-view mirror. My oldest is an adult, so after his follow-up, which he’ll go to by himself, that’s it. I will never even be permitted to walk those halls again if I wanted to. It’s bittersweet. And now that we’re a day removed from surgery, I think I will find a quiet place to finally, silently weep.