CHAPTER 7, PART 1

Shock is hard to classify. Is it an emotion? A physiological state of being? In medical terms, our bodies physically can go into shock, but emotionally, they can, too. I cannot describe the feeling after Logan’s death, other than to use the word “shock.” “Stress” is far too slight of a word. “Stunned” is not adequate. “Distressed”—that’s nothing. Once you hear the fateful news, the world changes forever and your mind wants to get back to normal.

In some moments, directly after Logan’s death, I could lose the shock if diverted by conversation. But for the most part, my memory kept harking back to the chaplain sitting on the edge of my coffee table, facing me and hearing the words “… and he died.” I only ate because someone put food in front of me. I tasted a casserole and absently remarked, “Does this have tuna in it?” as I am severely allergic to fin fish and tuna could kill me. Truthfully though, I would not have cared at that point. Logan’s death superseded all thought of self.

CHAPTER 7, PART 2

I drank when someone fixed me a Coke, and I went to bed when it was night, but all in all, I could have just sat there not moving, a still-life painting in the midst of life. The world had taken on a Salvador Dali aspect, everything familiar now twisting and bending in unfamiliar ways. Why should we eat? Why should we sleep? Why do anything?

At the funeral arrangements for my son, it seemed as though I were participating in a play, not my own life—the funeral director knew Logan from surfing, my bank card did not work because it was a debit card and I spent twenty minutes on the phone to our bank long distance straightening out the issue. Perhaps having a problem to solve helped while I waited for my daughter to meet us so that I could let my logical mind take over for a few minutes while I dealt with punching numbers into the phone. If you wish information about your checking account, press 1. If you wish information about your investments press …. My son was dead and I conversed with a computer. However, I was still in shock, so the surreal seemed natural.

CHAPTER 7, PART 3

I saw all the dark, wooden boxes as I picked out the coffin and shuddered until I walked by a light pine or oak one. I am really not sure what type of wood; I didn’t care then and still do not know, but it was light like my son’s personality. When my daughter met us at the funeral home, she immediately picked the same one. I did not think of cremation because we owned a burial plot next to Logan’s late father, so that seemed the natural place for him.

The night of Logan’s funeral service, his death hit me for the first time as real. We kept the casket closed during the viewing because many people are uneasy seeing the dead. I had not seen Logan’s body, so I asked the funeral director to open the casket before the service so that I could see him one last time in my life. As I approached the casket, I felt steady, but when I looked inside and saw my son wearing his tan corduroy hat that had belonged to his grandfather, my knees buckled underneath me. I fell to the floor. I had read about that sort of reaction and used to think it rather melodramatic, but I have changed my opinion on that. I had no control over this automatic reflex. Some unknown woman, I presume from the funeral home, hovered over me, telling me to breathe while my husband told her I would be okay. Logan’s body lying in a bed of satin showed me that from this nightmare, I was not to awaken.

CHAPTER 7, part 4

For Hazel, the aftershocks lasted much longer. She told me that she did not cry for two years after her son, Peter, was killed in the car wreck, until she read an imaginary letter in “Dear Abby.” The letter was about a seventeen-year-old boy and his plans for the future and what he had left behind after dying in an accident. Although not about Peter, after reading that letter, Hazel broke down and was able to release her tears for the first time. After that point, her shock eased somewhat now that she could cry for Peter.

The initial shock for me did not last as long as for Hazel, but every day was a new version of the first initial shock. Night became a time to dread because it meant sleep—after I was able to finally fall asleep, that is. Initially, I stayed awake for forty hours, but eventually everyone must sleep, and then sleep becomes a dreaded event. Why? Because it feels as though you are resting, but when your mind springs to awareness in the morning, you realize again that you lost a child. These painful reminders occur again and again throughout the course of each day.

CHAPTER 7, part 5

I think this might be how our bodies and minds acclimate us to our new life. The aftershocks lasted for several months, as I remember, but each one became a little less severe until one day I understood that his death is now incorporated into my being as a reality. One night I saw my husband changing the channels with the remote to avoid commercials and it brought to my mind Logie’s incessant channel changing, flipping from That Seventies Show to Seinfeld and back. I would be reading a book, and when I came out of the book, it would be another shock. I watched the Miami Dolphins play and thought of the many games we had watched together, realizing that we would never watch another game together again.

CHAPTER 7, part 6

It would please me to say that you will no longer feel after-shocks, two years after his death, but I cannot tell anyone this. I found a hat of my son’s in the closet and the wave hit me again, but not as intensely. A lingering sadness remained with me until I focused on something else again, realizing that these jolts serve a purpose and might be a necessary part of dealing with death. Hazel said even after thirty years, very rarely now though, she’ll experience a version of the shock and surprise of Peter not being around. Yesterday, I drove over to Cocoa Beach to pick up my other son, Nathan, and saw a boy in board pants with a surfboard crossing the road. My first thought was, “I wonder if that’s Logan.” It has been almost three years, and I had to shake my awareness into the fact that it could not be Logan.

CHAPTER 7, part 7

However, as hard as the initial shocks might be, it helps to think of them as a way of adjusting to the death so that we do not stay in that horrible state of unreality that occurs directly after the death. I hesitate to use the word “routine;” perhaps a better choice is the word “reality.” The continuing after-shocks eventually show us reality, and they may not cease (as evidenced by my drive yesterday). But the recovery period was much quicker, and it had been six months since the aforementioned hat incident.

For instance, when it’s four-thirty and you look up from your work because it’s time to pick her up from ballet, and it strikes you, there will be no more ballet, and you feel that jolt. Even though this series of after-shocks is a human mechanism helping you to cope, this does not ease the pain of the loss. At least these cruel moments serve a use at some point in time.

Just as our bodies naturally help us cope, what might be called the supernatural or the afterlife also helps us cope. The next chapter involves experiencing the supernatural because it has happened to every mother with whom I have spoken in one form or another. You might want to dwell upon that or you might want to skip the next chapter altogether.

CHAPTER 7, part 8

ACTIVITY

Did you receive a shock of awareness today, or perhaps more than one? Write down what you were doing, how it felt and how long it took you to realize the truth. This is one activity that you might consider doing every few weeks over the course of the next year. It might help you realize that you are gradually accepting the reality of the death.