My relationship to Silas has been changing. Gathering our friends and family around and planting a tree for him, speaking about him, expressing our loss and grief formally, in front of everyone, it seems to have helped me.
I’m still gut-wrenchingly sad, but there just might be a glimmer of calm worming its way into my soul.
It could just be a defense mechanism, though. Like the speck of sand in an oyster, I’m finding ways to surround and smooth over the rough pain of his absence. I don’t know if this feeling will last, if there is a brutal plunge ahead, or if I am on my way to some sort of peace or acceptance, but I know I am changing. For now, this calm is probably the result of exhausted resignation.
I can’t have him back. He’s gone, that’s it. There are no do-overs or second chances.
I’ve been living with this fact for 8 months now and I’m just completely fucking exhausted by the daily wrestling match between what I want and what I have. So I’m trying to stop that internal battle and simply resign myself to the facts at hand.
Nothing can change what happened to him, to us, to our lives, so I have to find a way to live with it. In the car when I blast music and blast down the highway, I twist and turn these thoughts like hideous alien gems, and I try to discern their facets and depths.
By staring at them long enough, I begin to pass through my sadness, into a realm where sadness is inherent in all the bits and pieces of reality itself, and that makes all the little good things shocking and bright. I have been trying to live in the World I used to know, and every day I’ve been devastated to find myself flattened by tragedy anew with each awful dawn.
But flip it around, and my loss and grief become the unsurprising parts and everything else that is *not* sucktacular is the reward for simply getting up; for allowing love to flow between us we still have each other; for allowing for the possibility that there are still some beautiful sparkles faintly glowing amidst our shattered landscape we still find laughter and music and moments of happiness. That any of that is still possible is what sometimes surprises me most of all.
I change and grow and re-examine myself and my thoughts every single day. I reevaluate what I want and what I need once it becomes clear what I can actually hope to achieve, in any given instance. With life and work I am constantly reworking plans to better fit the changing circumstances and facts at hand.
That I will never have Silas in my arms is something that will never change, though. I will not see him grow. I will never know him as a person, as my son, as a friend and peer in later years.
I can probably fix any screwed up relationship or misunderstanding from any point in my life. I can find the cash to get my car repaired. I can try again at nearly anything I have failed. But I cannot change what happened on September 25, 2008.
He was here and then he was gone and the maelstrom of that event has blown me utterly off course. And that is what he is becoming for me: a force of nature. For me, Silas has become a Law of the World. Like gravity, like light’s speed, like fusion at the core of our nearby star, Silas is immutable, unchanging, unknowable.
I sort of ‘get’ what’s going on in the Sun to create that immense furnace of energy. But I really don’t comprehend it in a true, literal sense. I know what I’ve been told: that hydrogen and helium are combining because of enormous pressure and temperature. Pressure pushes those atoms together and even though they don’t really want to get close, they don’t have a choice. When that non-choice is forced upon them, they are crushed together and break open, and immense quantities of energy are released. I ‘get’ all that, but I don’t know it. I can’t see the atoms combining one by one. It is beyond my ken, just like Silas is now.
So his death sits there in the center of my being, and it just… is. I can’t reason with it. I can’t fix it. No amount of tears or rage or depression can do a thing to dislodge that Absolute Fact and so the only reasonable response I’ve been able to summon is this:
It is up to me to change in order to incorporate this Law of Silas into my life.
Yes, he is our son. Yes, he was a tiny, beautiful perfect little boy. Yes he was the vessel of our hopes and dreams, the Everything we had staked our Everything Else to. And with him gone, the Everything Else came untethered and blew away even before we knew it was happening.
In his death, he has been transformed. He has become a force that acts on my soul and on my heart, but just like the wind, that force never changes. Every day when I relive his birth and death in my mind, it is always the same. But every time I do it, I am changed by increments etched with pain.
The trees planted for him, here in New Haven, up in New Hampshire and everywhere else in the World, it feels perfect and right. Their slow growth and leafy branches are the correct expression of what he has become for me. I can go to his trees and sit under his boughs and listen to wind softly whisper to me in a language I cannot understand with my mind, but it is one I already know in my heart and in my soul.
The sun warms my skin and then the breeze blows me cool. The Earth spins, holding me close. Missing my son empties me from within, forcing me to find Everything Else to put back in.
He is light speed. He is fission and fusion. He is the internal combustion that propels me forward through life. He is the love I can still find to share with my wife and my friends and my family all around.
He will never change, and I cannot do anything else.
26 comments
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May 26, 2009 at 11:33 pm
mom
with these …probably the most beautiful words you have written to date…i hope comes the start of all of our healing process. for the first time i see a glimmer of hope in what you write and it has helped me to embrace a possible future of gain rather than loss.
planting that tree was a wonderful tribute to the life unanswered. that you can sit under it for years to come and bring back the beauty of the newborn silas will be a comfort to you and lani and the rest of the family that is rosen gallagher.
somewhere out there in the essence of this world is a beautiful little baby boy who is smiling down on the parents that he was born to love….he sees hope where he only saw despair….he sees possibility where he only saw sorrow. he will always be cherished and loved by all of us…..and hopefully we can have a future that will bring us all joy…..in our hearts and in our minds he will be forever part of whatever comes our way,
May 27, 2009 at 12:21 am
Mrs.spit
There is a movement in grief, from darkness into light. And it is a good movement, but a hard one. Where we finally accept what is, having fully understood what was, and what will never be.
beautiful words.
May 27, 2009 at 12:24 am
Sally
Mind blowing post Chris. Possibly your most powerful to date. I don’t know what they call the stage you are in now, but I like the sound of it, and hope find you there some day myself.
May 27, 2009 at 4:25 am
mirne
“By staring at them long enough, I begin to pass through my sadness, into a realm where sadness is inherent in all the bits and pieces of reality itself, and that makes all the little good things shocking and bright.”
That is so true.
Once the sadness ceases to “overwhelm” you, it does simply become a part of your reality. This is how we babylost parents change in a very fundamental way. And this is the part that other people have a problem with. They don’t understand that although the grief has ceased to “shock” us, it has instead become a part of our every day reality.
Life every day for me is a combination of sadness and grief, but knowing that the sadness and grief has been there (and is there) also allows me to see the amazing and wonderful things that are also a part of my reality.
I am fortunate that my gorgeous husband is there to share all things in my life, whether wonderful or sad.
May 27, 2009 at 6:22 am
Angie
This is an incredibly rich post, Chris. So much to think about in here. Thank you for sharing it.
May 27, 2009 at 7:46 am
Tracy
I hope you feel my love and prayers each and every day.
May 27, 2009 at 11:04 am
m
An absolutely stunning post. This took my breath away with its honesty and the beauty of your words. I am printing it out and keeping it in my bag, hoping for the moment that my husband will be able/willing/ready to read it. Thank you.
May 27, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Catherine
This was an amazing post. Thank you for writing it.
May 27, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Sheila
Silas as ‘the law of the world’ is so very beautiful and insightful and poignant. I feel so sad when i think about Silas that it blows my mind to consider how it must make you feel. But you don’t just get up and keep doing your life (which in itself would be admirable), you and Lani have both been incredibly proactive in your own healing process, and that’s beyond impressive. All that exhausting work of wrestling with reality and logic and emotion seems to have led you somewhere positive: Incorporating, Changing, Adapting… sound so wise in a philosophical or buddhist type of way, like these are the keys to being at peace with the present moment. But it also sounds natural and Darwinian in that this is how the soul survives and restores itself. it can be done. and you are figuring out how, and you’re courageously doing it in this public forum where your introspections have become lessons for so many of us. we all thank you.
Always sending you both love,
Sheila
May 27, 2009 at 2:55 pm
circlesbecomeme
beautiful and powerful post… the line “exhausted by the daily wrestling match” resonates with me. Thank you for writing these words and sharing them
May 27, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Brenna
That was heart-wrenchingly beautiful to read. What a tribute to your gorgeous son (I had to click over to see the photo of him–truly, he is gorgeous). We lost our three sons on Sept. 25, 2008 as well. They were much younger than Silas–just over 20 weeks gestation when they were born–but it also took me many many months to even begin to “surround and smooth over the rough pain of their absence.” Your words are so powerful, the imagery so perfect. I’m holding Silas and you and your family in my heart.
May 27, 2009 at 3:39 pm
nancy
This is a very powerful post. And such beautiful words. The post itself as left me breathless.
May 27, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Marybeth
I lost myself in this piece. Although I wasn’t at the Memorial, I felt your sharing of your grief, and me sharing it with you, and the first buds of healing here. Amazing writing and imagery especially for such a close, personal, raw, deep subject. Thank you for sharing.
May 27, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Chris
You know, it’s funny. I’ve been waiting to read you post about this transition, wondering when it would happen for you. I’ve not been able to articulate, as you have so eloquently, though I’ve talked about it with D, but it feels like, as you put it, the formation of a pearl around a grain of sand. That is it exactly, the edges wearing a little softer, and the rawness easing. For me, this stage is relieving as it offers hope that we rise again from the ashes, but it is also terrifying, as I fear that it means that I am forgetting my sweet Baker. We are not forgetting, we’re healing, as much as one heals from something like this, and integrating our lost babies into our lives, and moving along with them. The thing to watch out for is that people around us will start to think that we’re all better – finally over the loss – and they will feel relieved. Their relief will torture us because they don’t understand. The grief is still there, it’s just not as ugly as it used to be.
May 27, 2009 at 11:01 pm
mom
to chris [above]…..just a thought….BETTER is a relative term…..and it is a word that reflects moving from one place to another…..no one who has gone through the pain of loss that we all have experienced can ever be totally BETTER….but if we can move forward along the continuum of betterment then it is a plus.
with forward movement there is hope. and with hope there can be healing., and with healing there can be joy. but we will never ever forget,
May 28, 2009 at 1:34 am
Childwoman
That’s exactly I am feeling right now, I think we are healing… Lani and you are helping me move on and deal with my grief everyday…I find strength in yours. I find solace in your words. The hurt will never ever go away. But it will get better, perhaps. Some things will never change, and some things will always evolve….My thoughts are with your family always.
May 28, 2009 at 1:55 am
janistan
Chris, such a beautiful, powerful and gorgeous post. I love it, thank you for sharing.
May 29, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Phrank
Extremely powerful words Chris.
May 30, 2009 at 1:16 am
B
This is beautiful.
I love the oyster metaphor – a thing that is carried within, that causes so much pain, but with time the jagged edges grow smooth, it is carried more easily and becomes a thing of beauty.
I remember this stage of my greif. I could see it coming and fought it off, but in the end I realised that all I could do was surrender, and turn and face the world carrying the knowledge and love of my daughter in my heart.
Peace to you
May 30, 2009 at 9:07 am
MamaPenguin
This is perhaps one of the most powerful things I have ever read. I’m rarely speechless, but I am really at a loss for words. I need to go and sit and think for a long while now. Thank you for sharing your thoughts so openly.
June 1, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Kellie
I started reading your blog after Brad posted the link on Carly’s site. Wow, I am so thankful to have found this and to hear all that you have been through. I am praying for you and Lani daily and sending love your way. Thanks for helping me to understand more intimately and fully what the loss of a child means to all the families I have taken care of who have suffered the same loss. Your words and advice will resonate in my mind when I am with them in that awful moment of drastic change in their life. Kellie
June 1, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Auntie Lis
Just when I think I’ve already read the most powerful of entries…
Admittedly, my visits to Silas’ page haven’t been as frequent this month. I am sorry. My mind told me not to go to the place where you’ve documented your pain – the same pain that I saw in your eyes and felt in your embrace the last we met. It is important that I come here to taste just one morsel of the pain you live, breathe and feel on a daily basis.
I just want so badly for Silas to be here. I guess I should use this space to say something uplifting or positive but tonight I just want to be sad here too and nothing else. I hope that is okay.
Love you.
June 2, 2009 at 6:42 am
fiona
a truly beautiful post. what an amazing man you are chris to put into words what so many in your new found community need and want to say. i read here often, and each time you give me a glimpse into what my sister and her husband (sally and simon) are going through. i still cannot fathom the intensity of your grief and never will. wishing you and your loved ones peace for your continued journey through the Law of Silas.
June 2, 2009 at 11:49 pm
Anne
Dear Chris and Lani-
I have been reading your blog for such a long time and am always stirred with emotion at your posts. I was recently with a friend who experienced a loss of a child at 36 weeks gestation who has received a lot of support from the Hygeia Foundation and I wondered whether you two knew of this group. Anyway, I just wanted to send you a note and mention it to you. Right here in New Haven, founded by Dr. Michael Berman.
http://hygeiafoundation.org/
Best wishes to you both, and may you find peace.
Anne
June 6, 2009 at 11:18 am
Jay (MDC)
Oh Daddy… I am just leaving this comment to give you a cuddle. We lost our daughter on 10.10.08 at full term as well. Much love to you, your lady and the rest of your family. XXX
June 7, 2009 at 9:56 am
caitsmom
Thank you for this post. I know the exhaustion you write about, and also know that the grief work we do isn’t wasted, but as you so beautifully put it . . . “But every time I do it, I am changed by increments etched with pain.” And the changes you describe are painfully beautiful.
Again, thank you for sharing your journey with us. I am so very sorry for the death of your precious Silas. Peace.