Me: You mentioned the other deaths you have experienced and so
my next question is: how did the experience of your dad dying, when you were 11
(15 years before Flynn died) impact your grief and how you grieved our son?
Landy: I had experience with
grief because it was not only my father who had died, there were also my two grandfathers before
that who I had really close relationships with. My father was the first of the
trifecta of parents dying in my life and I was young. It was a very traumatic
experience on many levels both with how it happened and when it happened and
where it happened coupled with my age, being only 11 years old. I was aware of
what it meant to have a father and what it meant to have someone permanently
gone from your life but I now know that I also didn’t fully grasp the impact of
not having my father in my life any longer. I can say now that the grief felt similar if
I put the two moments together of my dad dying and my son dying. In those early
moments anyway, they felt very similar to me. It was uncharted territory, very
raw and I did not know what I was going to do next. I knew everything was going
to change I just did not know how. When
my father died that was obviously the first major trauma that I can recall in
my life, the second major trauma would be Flynn. Prior to my son dying there were my two
grandfathers who died and their deaths were like (and this will sound
callous) but grief refreshers. I loved
both of my grandfathers; their deaths were not as much of a trauma as a
disappointment – at the time I wished that I could have them around
longer. When they died I understood the
inevitability of life, death and that their lives were going to end. I think I
felt that it should not have happened as quickly or as early in their lives as
it did but they were not young, they were grandparents, I mean they were at an
age where we begin to expect that people may die. Their deaths reminded me again that we lose
people in our lives and we are capable of remembering them, what they added to
our lives and what they contributed to other people’s lives. We carry them on in our own lives, reflecting
on them and who we are. I guess as a
result of experiencing those three deaths prior to Flynn, I felt less shocked
by what life was going to hold for me and was only shocked by the fact that now
I had lost my son, who I did not know and who I would not see grow up and
become someone more. It was like a cushion in my grief.
Me: Flynn died 12 years ago, from then until now are there still
differences in how you and I grieve? How have you seen me change in terms of my
grief and how would you say you have changed?
Landy: I have never really
reflected on how I have changed in my grief. I am comfortable with my grief
because I don’t feel like I have been “infected” by grief. That is to say, I
don’t feel like grief is trying to tear me apart or pull me down. It is
something that I have and live with and sometimes it is a little thicker than
other days but typically it is quite tolerable and it is just sort of always
there but not part of my consciousness. As far as you are concerned, if I had
to guess or lay my observation on it, it is much thicker in you, it is always
part of who you are and your day to day actions. There probably aren’t too many
days that go by where you don’t react or act in a way that isn’t in some way
impacted by your grief from Flynn – like directly related to Flynn. The career
path you have chosen was definitely the influence of our son’s death. Almost your every way of life has been
affected by grief in some form or another, mostly positive ways but very much a
part of your being.
Me: How does Flynn’s anniversary affect you?
Landy: It usually affects me
because it affects you. I have occasionally
experienced Flynn’s anniversary as an absence of “something.” The absence of
what should have been. A lot of times I experience it as an embarrassment
because I did not think about it until I realized it was upon us or it had
passed. There are times that you are acting or reacting in a way that is very
deeply affected, maybe depressed, very saddened by the day and I am going “oh
that is right, that is what today is” or “oh ya, that is what tomorrow is” or
even worse “oh right that was what yesterday was.” The impact of that experience
is embarrassment or shame and I question why I don’t remember or why isn’t this
more of a significant remembrance for me?
When that happens I find myself falling back on my other grief
experiences and I think “well I don’t really have ear-markers to my grief days
they are just always there.” I think about my father, my grandfathers and my
son frequently and infrequently – I mean, whenever but not at specific points
in the year. I try to remind myself that
it is okay to not worry about those milestones because I allow their memory and
my grief to come into my life when I need it to.
Me: Do you have ways that you remember Flynn or things that
remind you of him?
Landy: Our children, they
are probably the main way that I remember Flynn. I see the potential of who he could have been
in them. I frequently reflect on what he would have looked like while looking
at our three boys. That is pretty much it. Sometimes, like I said before, I see
a boy that would be Flynn’s age and I think about that.
Me: In your opinion how has the death of our son impacted our
marriage? Good, bad, ugly.
Landy: I think we have
experienced all three at different points in time. Good in the ways that it has
made us emotionally reflect on each other. We have dredged up things that maybe
we didn’t want to or maybe we wouldn’t have and have worked through them. We
have had to fight through some really difficult times and stuck together. I
think it has made us realize the depths of what it means to be partners through
horrible, horrible things. That is also
the bad, because we did have to navigate a bunch of crappy things and we were
forced to face them in our marriage and in ourselves and that was not pleasant.
I think as a result of our grief we did a lot of things to each other and
against each other that maybe other couples would not experience in their
marriages. Yet here we are on the other side of it. That is really the good,
the bad and the ugly.
Me: How has the death of your son impacted who you have become?
Landy: I know you might
laugh at this but it has made me a more compassionate individual coupled with
who you have become as a counsellor and as an experienced griever and the
friends and people we now surround ourselves with. It has made me more aware of
compassion and how to enact it with others.
Me: Last question. We are expecting again and I am wondering,
what (if any) is the impact of a subsequent pregnancy on a bereaved dad?
Landy: At this point, not
much. I very rarely think about grief
when I think about this next baby but we are also two pregnancies since Flynn’s
death. I do recall when we were pregnant
with our Middlest being very afraid and very protective of the thought that
everything is going to be okay. I
remember distinctly reminding myself that it had to be okay and I got to the point of denying any thought that
something could go wrong. I remember you
being worried just the way the whole thing spun out of control in the end (of
the pregnancy). I was just trying to not allow that thought, that he could die,
to even enter my consciousness. With our Littlest, a lot of stuff had happened
in our lives – so there was less denial then there was in the other pregnancy. Still I was very conscious of not wanting to
think negative thoughts. I guess I am
still there, I don’t want to think about what could go wrong or that things
could be bad or that we could experience that again. I just know that is not who I want to
be. I do have moments where I feel
stress or am acting odd and maybe it is how I am coping with this. I think you are always affected by the death
of your child in subsequent pregnancies, it manifests in different ways.
Me: Is there anything that I did not ask you or that you think
you would want someone to know about what it has meant for you to be a bereaved
dad?
Landy: Not that I am one for
advice as I am definitely not a role model but I would say just allow yourself
to grieve any which way that you see fit.
To be as open and honest with your partner as you can when it comes to
your grief – from the perspective that it is difficult to understand how you
are acting when you are grieving and it can be a way to reflect on it. It may help you to get ahead of emotions before
they are impacting someone else. Ultimately we are all grieving; we are all
reacting spontaneously to what is happening in our lives and as a partner to
someone who is grieving just realize there may be a lot of “figurative” punches
thrown and they do not necessarily represent the core of that individual. It may also indicate that there is a need for outside support (like counseling) and that is okay too. What
I have come to realize is the hurt may be something trying to work its way out and in
doing that it is beginning the healing.
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