by Tamara Harvey Braswell
On July 22, 2016, my son Logan crashed his truck into a tree and died from his injuries in intensive care. Each year, the grief hits me in different ways.
This year, the guilt hit me like a freight train. Logan had his share of challenges, including debilitating anxiety and a horrific eating disorder.
I desperately tried to get him the right treatment. Some of it worked and some of it didn’t. In the midst of his struggles, he got into a car crash. He didn’t get another chance to work through his pain.
In year eight, my grief took me to the center of his pain and unleashed a fury of sadness that I had not allowed myself to feel in a very long time. I beat myself up for being a bad mother in a maddening flow of words I scribbled on paper.
I had to feel the raw grief again before I could hear what Logan would say if he were sitting next to me:
It’s not your fault mom.
I am ok mom.
Write simple.
Write hard.
Be simple with it all.
Forgive yourself mom.
Love is hard mom.
Love hard mom.
Forgiveness clears the way for love mom.
Write about this every day.
“Do something” most days.
And “do nothing” to rest.
Feel the pain. Get it out.
I love you mom.
Hello, I am just 12, I lost my best friend to suicide (RIP Ahi Shetty 13-9-08 – 9-1-25) I found her in our school bathroom. I’ve not had any support from family, I have 2 brothers and one sister. They’re all younger than me. I get perfect grades because of my parents and they also beat me up. I’m hurting and I want to commit suicide. What should I do now?
My friend wrote this, we have the same name people at school are bullying me thinking i wrote this, we both want this taken down pls thanks, all the other ones too
It took me a while to figure out what was going on.
Tamara, I don’t know how exactly I came across this but it showed up in on my internet news feed. 8.11.24, bot to long after you wrote this but I honestly needed to read this. I’m glad you’re doing okay I honestly don’t know if you remember or not but your son Logan was one of my best friends before he tragically passed away. He was a true inspiration to all of us, always knowing how to put a smile on his face even when some days he couldn’t put one on his own. I catch myself sitting here days when I’m struggling or in the hospital and it’s almost like he’s there with me, telling me everything was going to be alright and I needed to keep pushing on. Thank you so much for raising such a fun young gentleman. It’s saddening that he didn’t get to live to See his full potential.
Hello Tamara,
I thank you for sharing how your grief changes and how even 7 years later it can be overwhelming. I have followed your story since losing my daughter in 2019; she just had her 28th birthday on July 18th (or would have), and the 6th one I’ve had to celebrate her without her. It was hard, very hard. I spent almost the entire day before crying and just could not shake off only being sad for several days after. Do I recognize what a blessing I had? Of course! But the fact she is NOT physically here was too much. This year. Who knows what every anniversary and birthday will bring? I love the words you felt from your son…just feel it, let it out. I think if we don’t we can’t go on to love the best we can. It frees us even though its smothering at the time.
Your honesty and openness have consistently touched me deeply. Also that of your now husband, Lloyd. BTW, the story he wrote asking was God with him, his child, at the time of his death….that was a saving Grace for me, it truly was. Those words carried me for a long time and still have profound meaning.
Five and a half years into this grief journey ….it’s hard to put it all into words. The changes, the back and forth of emotions….the establishment of “a new relationship with my daughter” takes a sh*t ton of energy, patience, forgiveness, and conscious effort seeking out how to make that relationship happen….and waiting on her for those moments, like yours…that help us through.
Blessings to you momma. Keep writing.
With big hugs, Jayne
Thank you so much Tamara for sharing about your loss and about your son. Like you, I felt that God had gone away on the night my partner died by suicide. And this feeling lasted for about 18 months but then I slowly opened my eyes and realized that He hadn’t gone on a vacation that extended throughout these 18 months – I was just looking in the wrong direction.
Your son did accomplish something and that is passing on to you the impact of his life and your willingness to share this with us. And I can see how he would have touched others in his short life. Alas, the world does judge accomplishments by fanfare but God accomplishes by His Love as manifested in His Creation and in the life of His people.
A friend of mine wrote to me the following words as taken from the Norse poem, The Edda –
“What more can we ask of a man that future generations remember his good reputation.”
Logan sounds like he would have had a good reputation, and I am certain that he shall always be remembered by those he knew. Our Love Ones shall always stay in our hearts.
I hear what you are saying about Covid for my mother died during Covid a few months before my partner. It is good that you can take something possible even if this is only the thankfulness that he did not contract Covid.
Beautifully said. I appreciate your soulful words. Thank you for sharing your son’s love.
I don’t believe God is ever on vacation. Those times when we feel like he is absent from our lives, especially during times of emotional turmoil and grief, Hd is there even closer than we know.
When my son passed away unexpectedly and I felt like I had no answers, I had to remind myself that God knows us better than we know ourselves… and he also knows the minds and hearts of those we love. When someone we love is taken, I truly believe it is because God knows not only our lives currently and past, but future as well. I realized that He took my son when He did because He alone can really see what the future would have brought for him…had my son been with us longer. My son passed away about 8 months “pre-covid” …He had suffered from mental health issues including anxiety and depression, he also suffered health problems which kept him on oxygen the majority of the time. He was always a soft spoken, gentle soul who looked for the best in Those around him, never uttering a negative word about others. His physical health meant he was in the hospital several times with issues affecting his breathing. When he was hospitalized he always wanted me present to “translate” the doctor’s instructions, diagnosis, follow medications, etc., if I couldn’t be there he would develop severe anxiety and try to leave against medical advice because he felt like the doctors did not understand what he was trying to say about his medical condition. More than once he did leave AMA (against medical advice)….and it wasn’t until 6 months after Covid became a major “shut-in” issue that I realized just how traumatic his life could have become had he been exposed to and came down with COVID (which he most certainly would have done with his lung problems). Had he been hospitalized with COVID, and separated from family, and everyone he trusted, forced to undergo his final days only seeing us through a window at best, it would have been the most horrible, cruel, and devastating feeling of abandonment that could possibly be meted out…He would have, based on other lung problems, become a victim of COVID and we would have lost him anyway, but the end would have been so devastating for him, feeling like he had been totally abandoned and left to die, that it would have been worse than anything I can imagine. God in His all knowing wisdom saw fit instead to take him in a manner that left him his dignity, his security, and knowing he was loved by us all. His passing when he did was an act of mercy.
We cannot see the future… we don’t know what lies down the road, and have no idea how much worse things could become for those we love if they remain here longer. He was not on vacation, in fact, the most likely stepped away from something else to be there to welcome your son with open arms, with more love than we can imagine possible, and the knowledge that his time here was done because he has accomplished his mission here on this earth….whatever that may have been…know this…he still is with you in everything you do and he is there to comfort you when your heart grieves like it is being torn apart… I know this because after 5 years I still go through times like this… but I know he is in good hands and I know he no longer feels physical pain or the anxiety and depression he suffered from here. He is at peace and I can pick myself up and go on knowing this. Though he was young and may not have accomplished anything the world may have seen as “grand” in his life, I and his 3 sisters all feel like he accomplished something extremely profound, he taught us the value of love, unconditional love, that does not judge, but is always there and always strong…he taught us patience and perseverance when things aren’t going your way, because he never complained and never lost faith in that Higher Power, he would just say, I know I have been through a lot Mom but I know everything happens for a reason, “God knows what I am going through and what I am feeling… He hasn’t left me alone, when things are super tough I just pray and I know He hears because I can feel His arm of comfort around me.”
So I have to remind myself I have no room to complain when someone I love went through so much more and never gave up.
Your son, from what you wrote, I believe would be saying the same thing…Don’t give up Mom…I am here for you Mom! God is here for you mom. You are never alone Mom! Just ask and you will be able to feel that someone is there. And lastly, I love you Mom and I will see you again when it’s your time.