This heart reminds me of all of our family beach vacations at the Outer Banks. Charles loved being with his cousins there. He didn’t love going in the ocean a whole lot and despite signing him up for swim lessons and more swim lessons, he refused to participate in them and as a result was a terrible swimmer. So I didn’t encourage a lot of ocean swimming.
We live in a river town so I worried he was in danger of drowning. And I always watched him closely at the beach for the same reason. I think back to all the precautions I took over the years for his safety. But I couldn’t protect him from himself. That I could not do. I never knew there was an enemy in his head telling him we’d be better off without him.
Suicide just was not on my radar. And when the shock of it sunk in when the police told us, it felt like my heart shattered like glass into a million pieces. I felt crushed. Literally crushed. How could I not see that coming?
What is the #griefheart project?
I explain my #griefheart project here.
See all #griefhearts so far on pinterest or on this blog by #griefheart category.
Who’d have thought my child’s worst enemy was in his own head?
Yep. That irony always eats at me too. The things we do as parents to protect our kids from harm long enough to get them out on their own. Then seven months after leaving the nest Daniel killed himself. And I managed to say all of that without using expletives.