Lunch with my fellow, bereaved moms – twelve years later.

There was no question about it. Remembering my involvement in Compassionate Friends this morning was definitely “up and out” writing therapy.

Although I am tired, I want to write about my lunch today seeing Lori and Allison. Both women looked absolutely wonderful; neither had changed at all – in fact all three of us looked radiant in comparison to those times where we carried the heavy load of grief.

There was a lot of catching up to do. I started to tell Lori something and she grinned. She said she read everything on my blog and knew me “really well.” That would be true, since I write deeply revealing personal feelings there.

I laughed hard when she said, “Judy, what is with you and all those pets? Don’t you have enough to take care of in your life?”

She was definitely right about that!

It was amazing for Lori and I to consider that both our oldest sons were now in college. For all three of us, our babies were now of high school age!

Then, Allison said something very interesting. She said she felt that sometimes she was too overly protective of her daughters; she was unsure of her strictness. She worried that she was trying to control everything and wondered if it was a reaction to the uncertainty resulting from her grief experience. Was it because she felt something awful could happen at any time?

We all agreed that uncertainty made our lives precious indeed. We all talked about how keenly sensitive we were to other peoples’ tragedies, and how easy it was to absorb their pain.

Allison thought that her year of intense grief involvement was a luxury that not everyone had. She paused and said, “Sometimes I’ll feel guilty because I’ll forget about one of Adam’s anniversaries of the heart. I’ll realize it had already passed, and I didn’t have any anguish about it.”

I was envious of her remark, and yet elated for her at the same time.

Lori talked about how difficult it was transferring her videotapes onto DVD’s. She would walk around the room to view her dead son as the TV played, and leave the room when it became too difficult.

I mentioned in passing something that has been quite momentous for me. I lived for a long time watching videotapes of Jason – it kept me going. However, for the last several years they have been misplaced. I don’t know where they are, or if I’ll ever find our box of videotapes again. It’s a long story, however, I’ve accepted it and that is huge for me.

Jason lives on in my life much more now than on those videotapes.

As we parted, we all agreed that it would not be another twelve years until we met again.

A card I received from Lori many years ago

A card I received from Allison many years ago.

Sadly, he would never have six candles.

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