The day that changed everything
Newly refreshed spoon tattoos, glowing in the light of the fire.
This day is one that changed everything.
It's a bit different every year (because nothing is ever exactly the same), but then again there are familiar themes and feelings. It makes sense that sometimes, it’s the days before that hit really hard. I know what’s coming… I can remember that THEN, I was blissfully unaware of what was about to happen. It’s even more understandable that the days after can be utterly draining. My heart and soul remember the deep sorrow and dehydration from crying. Everything had changed.
On this day, 10 years ago, our four year old son–Harvey–died at home.
Harvey had been a patient of the pediatric hospice program at our local hospice, Hospice of the Chesapeake, for about two months. Choosing to enroll Harvey in the Chesapeake Kids program was a difficult decision and yet it became one that we wished we had made sooner. The benefits of the hospice program were countless.
Hospice gave us the gift of time.
By managing and fully funding Harvey’s many specialty medications, they spared us countless hours of phone calls, pharmacy runs, and financial stress. They even sent a kind nurse to our home for blood draws, eliminating exhausting monthly trips to pediatric labs. Instead of battling traffic and logistics, we could spend that time with Harvey in peace.
Hospice gave us the gift of connection.
The lovely social worker assigned to our family helped us create lasting memories with Harvey, like the treasured Brothers footprint canvas I have in my home office. The team and the support they provided eased the burdens that pulled us away from each other. Their help allowed us to focus on simple joys and time together. Though Harvey’s journey with hospice was short, we are forever grateful for those final tender months.
In the months that followed Harvey’s death, I realized that I *needed* to turn my pain into purpose. I *wanted* to put everything I had learned to good use but was not sure what that could look like. All I knew for certain was that there was NO WAY I would sit on everything I had experienced and learned by being Harvey’s Mother; about myself, about trauma and about grief. I wanted to put my grief (and my pain) to work. I knew, however, that I had to spend a lot of time with my grief before I could access the gifts it would bring me. Yes, gifts.
10 years later, I can confidently say that I have claimed a “gift in grief”--my passion to work alongside others who are on a grief journey.
I honor Harvey’s memory and my grief every time I call on our experiences in order to support another soul. Turns out, that is nearly every day. Some wonder if visiting my grief every day is burdensome. It’s quite the opposite.
When visiting my grief, it’s true that I am visiting pain. It’s also true that I’m visiting love. You must know one, to know the other.
When clients first come to me, they frequently report feelings of “doing grief wrong.” They find that they are stuck and struggling because they are trying to return to “the way things were before.” They want to return to a time when they didn’t remember the pain; they only want to remember the love.
I help them understand that this is the error the brain made: entertaining the idea that you can go back. We inherently know that we can’t go back…but our hearts and minds desperately want to rewind and avoid the pain. It’s only natural. It’s in our design to avoid pain.
But, by intentionally avoiding the pain, we unintentionally avoid the love.
Every person I’ve asked says with gusto that they don’t want to avoid the love they feel for their special person. “It’s crazy to even consider,” some have said. But they don’t want to feel the pain either. So both get blocked. When I bring this to their attention, there is a silent understanding: “I’m struggling so much because when trying to block the pain, I’ve accidentally blocked the love and I’m feeling lost without it.”
Part of the grief journey is navigating the task of finding ways to experience and tolerate the pain long enough to reach the love again. This means that we have to find a way to do both–visit the pain AND feel the love.
This is what I help people do. This is my gift in grief. A gift from Harvey.
And for that…I am thankful.
Thank you, my brave little warrior for teaching me about myself, about life and about love. ❤️
Marie has been a volunteer with Hospice of the Chesapeake since 2019 and now facilitates the Child Loss Group that she once attended as a newly bereaved parent. It’s a full circle moment. If you are in need of grief support, reach out!
