shut down

One of the things I have struggled with the most after losing my sweet little Quincy has been myself. I feel like I have died. I feel like the person who I used to be, left with Q. I liked the person I was. I miss that person.


I think when you are grieving and healing, at some point, you have to shut down. The pain is far too great. Whenever I think about the actual events of the day of the accident I truly cannot comprehend it. I cannot believe that we had to go through that much tragedy and sadness. There are times I go over every detail I can remember and replay them over and over in my mind. Other times I quickly shut the memories out. My mind cannot handle it.


For the past almost two years, I have been shut down. Yes I am alive, I get up and go to work, make dinner, do dishes and laundry, go out with friends, I even smile and laugh. People think that I am fine. But at times I feel I am not being true to myself. Inside I have shut off. I feel weak and vulnerable and broken.


Life cannot be lived this way. I am young and I have a lot of life left. When I look back at the last year I feel like I haven’t even been a part of it. I look at pictures of tiny little newborn Ryder and really don’t have many memories of that time. When you are shut down inside you are not a part of life. It swirls around you and you go with the motion, but you are not engaged. I remember a few days after the funeral after all the family went home and everyone went back to work, back to life. Everything continued as normal as if nothing had happened, as if 3 people, 3 of the most important people in my life, had just died. I remember how hard it was for me to comprehend that everyone could just continue on. It seemed impossible. And for a time it was. I did very little but mourn.

Referring to the sorrowful Friday on which Jesus’s followers grieved
His death and then to the glorious Sunday on which He was resurrected,
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917–2008) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said:

“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe
itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces.
We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again.
We will all have our Fridays.

“But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—
Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

“No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come.
In this life or the next, Sunday will come.”


(The Healing Power of Grief  by Steven Eastmond)

As time goes on, and life goes on, I feel like I am learning to be a part of life again. Not just in person, but with my heart. I have found a new desire to want to be a part of everything, to engage in life, to feel things again. I have a longing to eat good food again, to make meals, to exercise, to stay on top of the household chores, to play, to laugh without regret, to feel joy, to just truly be a part of this life. All of these things I put aside when Q died. I truly didn’t care about anything.





Feels good to care. Feels good to live. Life is good.