My friend has lost her son.
Our children have lost a friend.
Our tribe has lost a soul; our husbands have lost a kid they coached.
Our grief is overwhelming. Unspeakable.
Now there will be a funeral, and the business of taking care of the living. It is the only thing that keeps us--the parents--from lying prostrate and keening our sorrows to the indifferent universe. Now we begin the lifelong process of helping our sons and daughters heal from wounds we hoped they would never feel.
We need each other. Raising our children takes a village indeed; it takes super-human strength, grit and tenacity. It takes forgiveness--of our children but mostly of ourselves--and it will challenge everything we believe. This parenting-of-adolescents is a burden too great to bear alone.
Until we have words to make sense of things, I turn--as I so often do--to the Blessed Mother. Forgive me my Catholic upbringing, Dear Reader, and ponder along with me. When there is no sense to be made of things:
But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. -Luke 2:19
Hil was a beautiful boy. We shall never be the same.
Agave discovers her son is dead. THE BACCHAE by Euripides. Ancient grief.