What Died

2019

A lot of what died with Vaughn were my own ideas: the idea of watching him grow into adulthood, the idea of always being able to see him–hear his voice, the idea of being the mother of two children–of watching their relationship change and grow over time. The idea of meeting his children. Laughing with him at the dinner table. Hearing his ideas about books and life and politics and people. Meeting his girlfriends. Supporing him in the inevitable romantic disappointments. Gradually knowing him as one adult to another.

So a lot of my grief is for the death of those expectations. Ideas my mind had formed, and new ones that still arise. Something I hadn’t thought of that I will not experience, such as hearing about his first job, or maybe the way he might have stopped by to help me move something heavy, will pop into my head with an accompanying shock of fresh grief.

These griefs are real in their way. Many of us grieve lost opportunities apparently. Actually I’m not sure grief is the right word. I think it’s a word that’s come to be used and thrown around too much. Regret, perhaps, would be a better word.

But for me those moments of regretting–pining for lost experiences that were only ever constructions of my mind to begin with…well they’re part of my experience, yes. I won’t beat myself up for it. But I should try to recognize them for what they are–the regret, the loss–of an idea. It is not the same as the grief of the loss of my child. To confound them is to cause myself additional suffering. And perhaps even to lose touch with that pure grief: the loss of Vaughn–my first-born child–no longer here on the planet with me.

I must amend that by saying: not with me in his embodied form. Okay Vaughn?