I came across something recently while going through old files.
It was written more than nine years ago, not long after Dustin died.
When I wrote it, I was not writing for anyone else. I was trying to think. Trying to make sense of something that does not make sense.
At the time, I did not have the language I have now. I did not understand nervous system regulation. I did not understand thresholds or trauma patterns. I was wrestling with causation the only way I knew how.
I am leaving it exactly as it was written.
This is where I was.
The Guilt
I’m not going to pretend this story has a happy ending… it doesn’t. There is only death. You’ve been duly warned. But there is a chance to see the happy moments in between, and to see the positive consequences from death and the sadness that follows.
A family portrait is what others see. A family is what the members of the family see. A heart is what the bearer sees. None of these bear resemblance of reality and conflict with each other considerably. All are blind, and sees what it sees. In our human form, there is always wool that covers the eyes. The number of layers varies greatly. This realization is a layer of wool in itself for many people. None of us contain perceptions that are a hundred percent reality.
If this is one of the best lessons that I have learned from my son, from that many life lessons that I learned from him, [and I fail to truly learn it,] then at best, I gained nothing. An open mind is a requirement for any life lesson, and wool clogs and closes it.
To be honest, before his death, I always believed that things were caused. My actions had a reaction or consequence in others. Your’s the same. If your child acted badly, it was a direct consequence of your parenting. I blamed myself for his death, and to some degree, I still do. However, gradually the wool is being lifted from my eyes to see that other factors come into play, as well.
There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t replay in my mind how I’d go back and do things differently, how I think I did this or that wrong, or that it wasn’t somehow my fault for how things turned out badly (in my belief). I think that is quite natural reaction to a world where we try to control the world in which we live in, and yet have very little control. This is the mind tricks, where the demons haunt us. It harms us, it hurts us. And yet, what are we to do, accept that we have no control and to give up trying? Life throws us some challenges, that you can count on.
The only answer that I have concluded is that there is both and neither. Both we control our world and yet we don’t control our world at all. And yet, that can’t be true, as they are in direct conflict. I believe this is the question that all religions have tried to answer, and yet, none of the religions can give a satisfactory answer to. If they did, there would be no more pain, there would be no more wars, and we would all live in peace.
My son died on November 19th. I will remember details about that day more than any other days.
I am still that woman.
I still believe perception is limited. I still wrestle with paradox. I still live inside the tension between control and lack of control. Those questions did not disappear.
I still try to solve them.
What has changed is not the presence of the tension. It is the urgency.
In the beginning, my mind tried to build causation out of fragments. I replayed conversations. I reconstructed timelines. I believed that if I could think clearly enough, I could find the fault line and make it make sense.
Over time, the questions did not leave. But my body stopped reacting to them as if they were emergencies.
I no longer believe the solving will save me.
If you are in that place now, circling causation, replaying decisions, trying to construct a straight line through something that has none, I recognize it.
You are not irrational.
You are trying to restore structure.
You may not stay in that acute loop forever. The questions may remain, but the alarm around them can soften.
Understanding does not erase loss. It changes the way the mind holds it.
This was where I was.
This is where I am.
Both are real.
