supposed to keep your children alive. It does not matter what the
circumstances are.
So of course we blame ourselves. There is no point in telling us not
to. We accept the blame, and we work on forgiving ourselves. There is
no other path.
And of course we feel guilty about not doing more to save him. We know
it makes no sense, but we cannot help it. So we let the feelings of
blame and guilt come through us, we contemplate them, and we send them
on their way. Little by little we work through each guilty bit, and
slowly put them behind us.
Sometimes the feelings of regret threaten to overwhelm me. Then I
have to tell myself: there is nothing I can do about that now.
This is a constant battle.
When we have worked through all of the blame and guilt and regret, we
are left with the plain fact that Lev is gone, and we miss him
terribly. And with this we feel a tremendous sadness. But in this
sadness there is a connection to the son we have lost, to the richness
of his memories, to the love that has nowhere to go. So when you hear
that we are sad, know that we are where we need and want to be. We do
not try to avoid it, and in our braver moments, we seek it out.
Often during a busy day our mind is carried away from our grief, as we
get lost in the thousand obligations of life. To be relieved from the
heaviness and sorrow helps us survive. But inevitably guilt or regret
or sadness find their way back in, be it from the thoughts of a quiet
moment, or the violent trigger of some sight that reminds us what we
have lost. And this is okay; we need to keep coming back to these
places. If we don't connect to these feelings frequently, we get
anxious. We feel the deeper feelings simmer beneath the surface, and
their presence eventually has to be acknowleged. So when you see us
grieving in the middle of the day, in a public place, in a situation that
is awkward, know that we have no choice, and that it is a relief to be
back where we need to be, to be connected to the one we have loved and
lost.
