Brian was My Heart

by Denise M.
(Connecticut)

It's been a little over six years since Brian died in a car crash. Amazing as it seems, he had only a tiny cut on his face to show that anything had happened to him. The force of the crash caused his seat to turn about 30 degrees and the brutal whiplash forced his head back onto the panel of the car that separates the front seats/doors from the rear. There wasn't even a bump on his head to show that something happened. He didn't die instantly but there was no hope that he would regain consciousness. He was brain dead for three days but his brain stem was still alive. He had signed up to be an organ donor and they had to wait until his brain stem died before they could harvest his organs.

Brian was 19 years old. He would have been 20 in three months. Just when my baby was starting to become a man, God called him home. But in those 20 years, I was so very happy. Brian and I bonded almost immediately. He was so sweet, gentle, funny, endearing, loving, responsible, helpful, friendly, grounded, giving, and so much more. He had all my love. My heart was his.

For six years, I've mourned his loss. I can hardly believe that he's gone. It's not what I pictured happening. The worse thing that I thought would ever happen would be that he might move to the other side of the country for one reason or another, and I wouldn't see him very often. I remember the first realization that I would never see him again. I felt complete devastation and desolation, so deep, down to every fiber of my being. I don't think that even facing death myself would have had such an impact. The black hole, the emptiness, the nothingness was so complete. Where Brian should have been, there was a complete rending of everything except my sanity but I would have preferred losing my sanity. No words can come close enough to explain how I feel and no one can understand or even imagine how I feel unless they've lost a child.

For the first year or so, I cried with huge sobs and groans. It was too much! The pain was unbearable, so complete, darker, deeper and more horrible than I ever could have imagined. This child, who was the light of my life, was more than gone from my life . . . a part of me died with him.

I've experienced other losses in my life. My father died when I was 13, my sister died when I was 16 and my mother died when I was 32. I know what it's like to mourn the loss of people that I loved very much . . . the sadness, missing them, wishing they were still alive, not being able to share joys and love with them any longer. But nothing compares to what and how I feel about losing my son.

My husband died of a heart attack two months before Brian. I had/have no one to turn to, no one to hold me, no one to understand how I feel, nobody's shoulder to literally cry on.

I lost my friends. They thought that I should be getting over the loss of my son. Even my sister wants nothing to do with me. I haven't heard from them in three or four years. I never did cry when I was around people but I'm much more subdued and more adamant in how I feel about things. I guess they didn't like how Brian's death affected and changed me. Maybe losing them affected me on some level but it means almost nothing to me.

I'm now going into year 7. I think of Brian every day, several times a day. He would have been 26 this year. I might have a grandchild had he lived. The holidays are coming. I always loved this time of year. Wouldn't it have been wonderful . . . the family get-togethers, baking, planning, shopping, wrapping, secrets, decorating the house!! It all falls flat now. I don't do any of it anymore.

I really don't think that life will get any better. I've read that it will but I think it handed me one sorrow too many.