On October 9th, 2022, my husband and I arrived home late in the afternoon from the city; we had gone there to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We unpacked, sat at our kitchen island, and started to snack on leftover appies, conversing about life and all our expectations, dreams, and goals for the rest of 2022. We were still basking in the glow of the weekend; it had been a great time away from the busyness of life.
Then Colin’s phone rang, I could see from the call display that it was our daughter, Nevada. I smiled, thinking it was the Thanksgiving call; she must have finished dinner at her in-laws’ home and was now phoning to say Happy Thanksgiving.
My husband answered. His face changed, and worry crept into the lines on his face. I could hear Nevada’s voice raised. This didn’t sound like a Happy Thanksgiving message. He handed me the phone.
I wasn’t ready for the words I was about to hear. You never are. If you knew what words were about to be spoken, you would never take the phone. You would run and never stop running, never wanting to hear the words that were about to be said.
My life changed forever when I took the phone from him.
A part of me was hoping that I would hear the words “Happy Thanksgiving.” Another part of me knowing that something was terribly wrong.
I took the phone, put it to my ear, and said, “Nevada.” I heard my daughter forcing words, trying to speak through so much pain while holding back her own scream to speak these words to me.
“Mom, he’s gone, Devon’s been killed, he’s the man who was killed outside the Cactus Club in Kelowna last night.”
My baby girl having to deliver the cruelest of news, how she was able to take that onto her tiny shoulders, knowing she was about to shatter my heart into a million pieces, how she found the strength, I will never know, it should never have been her burden to carry.
When she spoke the words through her own anguish, I felt my blood go cold, my hands started to shake, and it felt like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out of it. I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed in a momentary vacuum. I started to feel like the room was spinning. I took 2 steps towards the door, wanting to run from her voice and the words she spoke. 2 steps, I made it 2 steps, and then the floor opened underneath me, my legs refusing to hold me up, collapsing into a dark pit of pain.
And then I heard it, this primordial scream, finally releasing as my lungs finally filled back up with oxygen, coming deep from within me, coming from my womb, the womb that carried him earthside, this scream that nightmares are made of, this scream that scorched my throat. The tears burned as they streamed from my eyes. “Noooooo, no, no, not my boy, nooooooooooo.”
My husband tried to hold me, but I was deadweight, lying on the floor. My heart felt as though it were being crushed, shattered, and ripped apart all at the same time. Pain, so much pain in my chest, the scream never-ending, caught ragged and venomous in my throat, clawing its way out of my chest, echoing inside my head.
My brain just not comprehending what was happening, denying that this was happening, it’s a mistake, that wasn’t him, this can’t be, how can this be, they identified the wrong victim, this is not happening, my brain trying desperately to protect me from this pain searing through me.
The phone rang again, and it was my son Chad. Colin put the phone to my ear. I could hear his pain, his heart being tortured as he spoke through his tears, “Mom, Mom, I’m so sorry, Mom.” All I could say was, “I love you; I love you,” and then the screams came again. Colin took the phone from my shaking hands, spoke to Chad, and again held me, lifting me to the couch. His pain and fear at seeing this happening to the one he loves was written on his face.
In that moment, my life changed. How do you ever not feel this pain again?
The thoughts that consume you in the days after news like that spin you around and twist you up, taking you to guilt, regret, anger, to this can’t be true, it’s just a nightmare, I’m going to wake up, if only I had been there, I’m the mom, I’m the one who takes a bullet, stops a train, lifts a car when their child is threatened, the thoughts just keep coming, making no sense.
Because nothing makes sense anymore, no words spoken can give you comfort, you’re numb, but you’re not, the tears sting your eyes, your breath keeps catching in your throat, you can’t speak, your heart wants out of your chest, being crushed but imploding at the same time. Your legs feel weighted, everything seems to be heavy, the air around you, the space you’re in, like you’ve been dragged into a deep, dark pit, where every movement feels like you are in quicksand, move and you will be pulled under, deeper into this pain.
I wanted to wake up from this, but I couldn’t fall asleep to be woken up from this nightmare. I didn’t want to look forward knowing this was the real world, that no one could scare this monster out from underneath my bed and make it all better.
Moving on? Fuck, how?
That did not seem even to be an option. How do you go on? How do you get up when your world has just been taken out at the knees?
But you have to go on. Giving up was not an option. I still have 2 children, and I have 3 grandchildren. Devon had a daughter, Jesus, she wasn’t even 2 years old, and her daddy was taken from her. I have a husband who loves me and a family who feared how small I might make myself. No, Reta, you just can’t quit.
Every day as I wake up, I come through the slumber and the fog, my brain correcting itself to confirm the reality that “Yes, Reta, he is gone, it’s another day, and you won’t see him, you won’t hear him, you won’t be with him, he’s fucking gone, and that is now your reality.” This is the life of grief.
Every day, waking up and understanding that your child is gone, no longer in this realm with us. Knowing his life was taken because another being felt they had the right to plunge a knife into his chest and end his life.
Now, I have to decide every day that I’m going to take a deep breath, put my feet on the ground and stand the fuck up. It’s not easy, not at all. Easy would be to stay in bed and cocoon myself in the covers, hide from my life, and let the pain keep consuming me as if that knife were plunging into my chest, over and over.
But I can’t.
I can’t because his killer is still walking free, I can’t because his daughter is learning to live without him, I can’t because that’s not how I was raised.
My mantra since my son lost his life at the hands of another has been something my mother said to me years ago. Something she shared with me when we lost my brother-in-law decades ago. She was so stoic, and I asked her how she was not breaking; she replied, “We honor the dead by living.” I’ve remembered those words for years, never applying them in practice, never honoring her shared wisdom.
Until that day, I lost my son.
Now, I say those words every morning.
If he were still alive, he would be living his life out loud. That’s who he was. So, no, quitting on living is not an option.
I’ve heard it said many times since that day: that time heals. I don’t buy that; I don’t think that is what happens. I believe we just get stronger at carrying that pain, like a rote muscle memory, always being flexed. We build up that pain muscle.
We acknowledge and learn that pain of that level can only happen if, first, there is immense love. So, I’m trying to consciously rewire that pain back into love. To not let the pain hold that space, to let that space be held again by feelings of undying love and appreciation.
It’s been said that grief is love with nowhere to call home. So, I need to give it back its home, a home where it is loved and appreciated.
Allowing the love I have for him to hold that space, appreciating every memory that floods into me, granting the tears permission to fall, knowing each drop is for him, holding him in those memories, allowing that feeling of love I had for him earthside to hold that space, pushing the pain to the side.
Now, my days always have space spent with him. I see him in the shadows, and I smile and say hi. I hear him in the wind, I feel him when the sun touches my face, I think of him, and I smile, thinking how lucky I was to have called him mine, to have had him, to have held him, to have loved him, to call him “my son.”
Learning to live with the knowing that there is no magic wand, no rewind button, no delete button, no do over, knowing that we can’t rewrite that chapter.
What’s done cannot be undone.
Learning to accept the pain, embracing it, is an act of resilience, because honestly, I don’t believe you ever “get over it’” and you shouldn’t. It’s not something to be forgotten; you will live with it till your last breath, but my wish is that all who know this loss learn that we honor the dead by living and that we keep living for them.
I didn’t understand that by simply getting up, I was practicing resilience. It really didn’t feel like a choice, I had eyes looking at me, the eyes of my grandchildren, my children, my husband, and my family. They needed me to get up and know I wouldn’t stay down because they, too, were hurting. I never want my grandchildren to ask why Gigi is always sad, and I didn’t want my children to see me paralyzed when they themselves were having to get up. Resiliency wasn’t a choice. It was the only option.
There are no magic words to heal you after the loss of a child, and people will say things that will make you want to scream. Understand they come from their place of comfort, which may not be yours. Give yourself grace, be kind to yourself, allow every sacred tear to fall and be honored, honor them, love them, feel them. Find an outlet, be it writing, walking, or painting, and let your feelings be felt and witnessed. Grief is not a journey of isolation. It is a journey of love. A journey to honor the love of the one you lost.
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