All Losses Are Not Created Equal

On my bedroom dresser lies a brittle rose long ago withdrawn of life.  I hesitate to touch it lest one petal should crumble into burgundy dust.  Already over a year old, it was given to me by my son the last time I was able to kiss his cheek in gratitude and feel his massive arms about me in that apologetic embrace common of sons whose love for their mothers often exceeds their ability to prove it.

That was on the eve of his arrest.

I have read a great deal about losses today as so many are remembering the horrific events that took place in our country nine years ago, and I find myself crying in spite of the fact that I was not among those whose personal losses came in unison on that brilliantly bright and clear September morning.

I don't suppose that grief and loss are qualified under only one banner or that they suspend time differently for those of us whose fates have made such encounters with them darkly real.

We all hold our breath with the same force of will when confronted by uncompromising sorrow and exhale only out of necessity, driven by the same intuitive need to survive.

Sometimes it is these instinctive motions that are all we have to carry us forward; sometimes this remains so for years.

I find myself wondering about the touchstones of loss and how often they are triggered within each day for those who are forced to sequester abiding grief to some small corner of consciousness while they politely continue to court the relentless progress of time.

We often forget that there is so much bravery within the most casual smile.

I did not lose a loved one on September 11th.  However, it was the last time my family was intact and the last time we experienced any semblance of normal.  Not long after my son began his ardent love affair with pharmaceutical escape and began to disappear.

So, in many respects I have countenanced these nine years with the same acute sense of loss as thousands of others.

Of course, my loss is different.  My son is alive, and although he is now in a state penitentiary, there is the knowledge that he will one day be released along with the hope that he will conduct himself rightly when he is.

It is that same hope which daily counsels my heart against despair.

But there are no sureties in this; nothing that guarantees his liberation from a mindset of self-loathing or from his learned propensity to combat his demons by any means necessary, including those enriched with lies and populated by depravity.

There is nothing that whispers to me that all will be well.  There is only the promise in the possibility and as dubious as that may be based on his past choices, it is all that I have.

There are days when I envy those whose grief is burrowed under losses which are dignified by death.  To most this is an appalling sentiment; that I would find anything at all to envy about a loss so utterly and irredeemably permanent.  But in spite of my best efforts it recurs as an occasional conviction.  On better days my creed is:  "Where there is life, there is hope."

Yet what the bereaved mourners of the dead possess that those of us whose losses are stained with the moral illegitimacies of brokenness do not is dignity.  Felonious misdeeds tend not to evoke much compassion.

To lose a child to death, even one brought about by suicide or substance abuse, elicits sympathy and comfort from others.  There is relief that is supported by common empathy for the ultimate end that we all share and we are bolstered by that collective understanding.

To lose a child to his own mendacity further couched within the obvious degradation of the penal system has no such soft landing.  There is no dignity shouldering this cross and what honor is possible remains just that until the sentence is complete and fate provides an opportunity for redemption.

But the touchstones that remind us of our losses remain the same:  An article of clothing; a favorite song or movie;  a type of day;  a glimpse of someone walking down the street with the same build, the same gait;  a similar laugh heard in the middle of a party; a birthday or holiday;  a photograph or letter;  the dark bones of emptiness that greet us when awakened in the middle of the night.

Those things are universal.  It is only the permission to resume your life with a measure of dignity and honor that are withheld from those of us whose grieving has become a protracted dance between humiliation and fortitude.

That, and the equally steadfast encounters with penitent reality that can and do come when you are often least prepared for them.

I had one of those today.  My letter to my son was returned to me and cited in large, red letters across the front it said, "REFUSED!  RETURN TO SENDER!  INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL!"

How my letter, some copied crossword puzzles from the daily newspaper and a copy of a piece I wrote on the birthday of his grandfather could have been construed as being 'inappropriate material' is beyond me; although I can only guess at what our mail carrier must be thinking.

The debasement of my loss is exposed to far more people than you could ever imagine; all without my ever saying a word.

Yet it is not the loss that stirs me to tears.  It is the judgment that invariably follows.  Such judgment rarely accompanies death.  Even under the worst circumstances, death is considered punishment enough.

Sacrifice and loss come in many forms, and I don't know that we can ever fully grasp the significance or ramifications of either no matter how squarely they sit among our days.

The best we can do is to exhale and allow the days that follow our losses to inform us of the necessity and relevance of those that came before.

The restoration of dignity for myself and for my family is a long way off and there is always the chance that it may never return.

But dignity or not, the show must go on and I hold onto my faith that grace will abide to make that possible.