Our Fourth Thanksgiving Without Leif

I am grateful today for my family and friends, for the life I have, for my home and my country, and to be fortunate to have enough to live well. I am thankful for my husband and best friend, my sons and my grandchildren, especially.

Today is our fourth Thanksgiving without Leif, a holiday he shared with us most of the years of his life. It will never seen right or complete without him, and even with the gratitude I feel there will always be sadness that he is not with us.

I am thankful he was our son, is our son, that we had him for 33 years. It's hard to say that and not add, "but it was not enough." I can't do it. It wasn't enough. I miss him.

Like all parents who have lived through the death of a beloved child, that longing never goes away. After a time, for many hours, many days, the pain subsides. Life seems normal, until something opens the door and lets the longing and sadness out.

Holidays are such a mixed blessing. They are still a time to celebrate, to be thankful, to enjoy our families and friends. They are still a time for traditions and love. They are still a time to treasure.

But they will always be bittersweet, tinged with loss.

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This photo of Leif was taken when we lived in Japan, probably in 1981 when he was six years old. The USA patch on his blazer is so appropriate. He grew up to be passionate about his country, served it in the army, studied its Constitution at the university. The thoughtful pose is appropriate, too. When Leif was young, he wasn't a talker like his brother. He was a quiet one, a thinker, and we usually didn't know what was going on in his bright mind. Later, once Peter A. left home, the floodgates opened and he began to talk and talk and talk, as though he had stored it up for the opportunity when he didn't have to "compete" for the "floor," but I also think during those years, when he was close to his brother, he spent a lot of time carefully listening, learning and absorbing what his brother (and the rest of us) were saying.

Leif had an incredible memory for just about everything he heard, and a special talent for being able to multitask, even as a very small child, where he appeared to be absorbed in doing something on his own but was very intently also listening to everything that was going on around him. Later, after he had thought about it and formed his own ideas, he could not only "parrot" back just about word for word what he had heard, even imitating the inflection of the speaker, but explain it accurately and add his own conclusions or further thoughts.

This photo must have been taken around or on Thanksgiving, I think, because I don't have Christmas photos of him wearing this blazer. We always took Christmas photos, but for some reason, rarely or if ever took photos at Thanksgiving. Peter W. says he took this picture. Perhaps he did, but it looks like a professional print to me, and I don't think he ever posed any of us when he took photos. Leif's elbow is resting on what appears to be an upholstered stool, and that curled fist under the chin, while beautiful in this photo, is not a typical pose for Leif. We both love this picture, and it's one of few we have framed and displayed in our house.

While I was writing this, Peter W. came into my office and said he wished we could go back to that time, the time of the photo, but that he didn't know what we could have done differently to help Leif find a better outcome in his life.

That's the trouble. No matter how often we go over it all in our minds, there's no resolution. We can't go back, and if we did, how would we do things differently? We will never know. That's one of the things that continues to eat away at people like us, even on this day of celebration.

Yet we will celebrate, and we will be thankful, just not with unalloyed joy.

The Bond With One's Child

I've written in posts shortly after Leif died that it felt like having a part of me cut off, and though it still does, like an amputee, I am learning how to live with it, though that doesn't mean I will ever stop missing him. I have speculated that there is something very physical about the bond between a mother and child, something in the DNA, perhaps, that knows when it is missing, but now I've read a study in Scientific American that has a different and compelling explanation. It says that the brains of new mothers change and areas grow as they bond with their infants. There literally are neural connections that are deep and strong, physical ones, not just psychic bonds, or are they one and the same? The article, "A New Mom's Changing Brain," by Nathan Collins, explains how these changes occur and what the effects are. The entire article is not available with this link, but if you have access to a good public library that has databases or a college or university library that does, you can access it there.

I found myself wondering just how profoundly my bond with Leif had changed my brain, and how acutely my brain, and thus my feelings, suffers from the lack of him and the bond being supported by his presence in my life. Is this at least partly why mothers (and perhaps fathers, too, for someone needs to research that) grieve so terribly over the death of a child, no matter what age they are when they die?

I also wondered whether love of any kind, romantic love, friendship, also creates changes in the brain, demonstrable proof of the response to another. I'll bet research would show that, too, but that it would be in some ways different than the response to one's baby.

I have felt sad that I haven't had time to post on this blog for the past 12 days due to other family needs. The living have to take precedence over the dead, and although I know that and believe it, still I felt as though I were neglecting Leif during this time, not giving him the time I want to devote to his memory, not keeping up the blog as well as I would like to do during the last part of the third year since his death. I can hardly believe that in only 18 days, it will be three years since he died. I still don't want to believe it, still want him back. It doesn't seem like three years could already have passed.

I was talking to my neighbor and friend whose son died six years ago this month and she said she heard a man whose son died man more years ago answer the question about whether it hurts and less over time this way, "No, but it hurts less often." She agreed with that, and so do I.

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These photos of Leif were taken in our quarters at Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico around February 1991 when Leif had just turned 16 and was starting to let his hair grow longer. They are unusual because I think this was the only tan outfit or shirt he ever had. Tan was not his color or a favorite of his, so I don't even really know how or why he got it. Note the acid rock t-shirt under it.

How to Help a Bereaved Parent - WikiHow

How to Help a Bereaved Parent (click on the title)

This is an excellent article and video from WikiHow on how to be a friend or relative to a grieving parent whose child has died, the best I've seen. Especially good are the short video and tips at the end. Three years ago, before Leif died, this would have been just "information" for me. Now I can relate to everything said and it is all so true. Save this or bookmark it in case you ever need it. I hope none of this blog's readers every experience the death of their child.
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The photo of Leif was taken at Lovers Point in Monterey, California in July 1980 when Leif was five years old.

"How Many Children Do You Have?"

Such an innocent question, one we all ask when we meet someone. Usually, we are all proud and happy to answer it, but it poses a difficult situation for those of us whose children have died. Do we answer with the number that are still living? (Even sadder for those who have none left.) Or do we answer how many we had?

It would be easier in some ways to answer that we have one son. That prevents the inevitable questions that lead to having to answer that one of our sons died, and then the questions about how, and having to answer that he shot himself, which always leads to a shocked silence. People don't know how to respond. Would you?

But it's not easier for me, because I cannot ever forget Leif, that he was and is a big part of our lives. He always will be. We had TWO children, not one, even though Leif is no longer with us. So, I always answer that we had two sons but one died. And I answer the questions truthfully. It may not be as comfortable as just telling about Peter A. and his family, but it's the only way I can do it. I cannot deny Leif's life, and I also think that avoiding the subjects of death and suicide is not right. People have tried too hard over the years to deny the reality of depression, mental illness and suicide. We have to be open about it or people will never feel it's all right to get treatment.

And how should someone who is confronted with the answer that the person they have just met lost a child, however they died? I don't know whether all bereaved parents would feel the same as I do, but I think the easiest thing to deal with is a simple, "I'm sorry. That must be very difficult for you." Just leave it at that unless the person seems to want to talk more about it. If they do, and you want to (that's another important consideration - don't feel you must if it is too difficult for you), then just say, "If you'd like to tell me about it, please do." If not, just say something like, "I'm know this is terrible blow for you. I hope you have someone to talk with about it," and go on to something else.

Don't be surprised at the emotional reaction of the grieving parent (and make no mistake, they will grieve all their lives, though in different measure at different times). Sometimes a parent who has lost a child can talk about it quite matter-of-factly and you might think they are "over it" or even callous about it, but that's not the case. It's just that at that moment, they are in control. Another time, the same parent might tear up or even burst into tears. It depends a lot upon what's been happening in their lives at that time. It's a lot harder, for instance, when milestones are close, like their dead child's birthday, Christmas, New Years (it's always hard to start a new year without a beloved son or daughter; New Years brings it home that another year without them has gone by and another one is coming), Thanksgiving, or other special days relating to their family. Sometimes they have had some significant reminder of their child that has made them feel especially vulnerable.

It's embarrassing to cry in front of other people, especially someone you've just met, so don't act like they are breaking down or get all flustered about it. If you feel so inclined, just give them a hug. Let them regain control. Believe me, they are fighting for it!

How many children do I have? TWO. The answer will always be TWO. Leif lived. He will always live in my heart.

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This photo of the four of us was taken by my sister Sherie in our old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas in July 1976. Leif was 18 months old. Peter Anthony was seven-and-a-half years old.

It's All Right to be Happy

I was driving along a couple of days ago, thinking of Leif. For some reason, I always think of him when I'm driving alone, and usually it makes me sad. I often talk to him then, though I have no illusion that he is there listening.

It was a gorgeous day, and I realized I was actually feeling happy, even though I was still missing him and thinking of him. The thought came into my head, as though someone had said it, "It's all right to be happy."

That made me think. I realized that a few days earlier, I had been happy on a bike ride, the same kind of happiness I used to feel before Leif died, a real appreciation of the beautiful day. Its not that there hasn't been any happiness since he died. There has, but it hasn't been the same. It's been in some sense subdued, or tinged with the knowledge of Leif's death and the sadness and regret that brings, the feeling of a hole in my heart that is never going to be filled.

These two instances of a real happiness, not weighed down by grief, were a window into what was and what I expect will be. The thought or voice telling me it was all right to be happy was something (me? Leif?) giving me permission to feel it without guilt. I asked myself the question, "What kind of a mother can be happy when her child is dead, particularly the kind of sad death Leif died?"

I think the answer is not simple. It depends on time. It depends upon the mother. It depends upon those around her. It depends upon being able to live through grief and mourning long enough to understand that it will in some sense always be with me, but it doesn't have to overwhelm everything else forever, that time and coming to terms (not peace, terms) with it will allow happiness to shine through, even while understanding that the sadness will still come back at times, and so will the tears. It depends upon the slow appreciation of something I knew all along; all of the good people and things I still have in my life.

I think some people carry grief like a badge, like a new identity, and don't know how to give it up, thinking there is something wrong with them if they do. I remember feeling that I would somehow be a bad mother if I could be happy again after Leif's death, even though I knew that was wrong. Feelings and ways of doing things can become a habit, too. Grieving is emotionally all-consuming at first. It wears off only slowly and slightly at a time, and it is right for the loss one has been dealt. The transition from that encompassing misery to the kind of sadness that comes over one occasionally when one thinks of certain things or is reminded of the loss is neither easy nor a straight path. It twists and turns. It doubles back. It ebbs and then crashes in full force. It was in the same week that I was driving home one night and was overcome by sadness, thinking that Leif would not be here for Christmas, the second one since he died.

I think it will be like this for a long time.

But it is all right to be happy, and I will be glad for the days and hours when happiness comes.

How I wish Leif had been happy, as happy as he was in this picture.

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This photo of Leif was taken in our old stone house in July 2003, when we were all sitting around the dining room table having a great conversation and beer (which Leif brought) in Peter W's German beer steins. His brother, Peter A. was there, and so was Darlene, and Marcus, and Leif's friend Michael. It was a happy evening.

My Two Beautiful Boys - Manhattan, Kansas - November 1975 - Leif age 10 months

This photo makes me smile, my two beautiful sons looking happy together on our old gold velvet couch. That couch served us many a year, from 1973 (gosh, it was nearly "new" in this photo) until around 2004, I think. It was retired to the Salvation Army.

This photo was probably taken near Thanksgiving in November 1975. Leif was 10 months old and Peter Anthony would have a birthday a month later and celebrate being 7 years old. Peter W. had been in Germany that fall on Reforger maneuvers with the Army, and I was taking graduate school classes at Kansas State University.

I am grateful for every photo, and the memories that go with them.

Yesterday I sang with the German American Chorus in a Christmas concert and remembered that two years ago, Leif was there to see the concert, enjoyed the party with us afterward, and got a particular laugh out of John H. singing a funny version of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," that goes something like this;

My Country tis of thee
i come from Germany
My name is Fritz.
Give me some sauerkraut.
Don't leave the bratwurst out,
....
Give me a stein of beer
And i'll stay here.

Maybe I'll remember the missing lines later.

Last year I had a very hard time singing some of the Christmas songs and got choked up, espcially on "I'll Be Home For Christmas," realizing that Leif would never again be home for Christmas. This year I had a couple of moments when I almost got choked up and felt a brief sting of tears, but it was so much better than last year. I am grateful for that, too.

Several years ago a friend of ours lost her little daughter, not even two years old, when a babysitter threw her and injured her. He was convicted after a long and heartbreaking trial. Little Jordan's birthday was the 11th, and her family still remembers and misses her so. I reflected on how we both lost children and were devastated by that loss, but I had Leif for 33 years, at least. They lost all of their daughter's future and all but a tiny part of her childhood. I have the photos and the memories and they can only think what might have been. Losing a child is terrible at any time, but I can be grateful for Leif's whole childhood and fifteen years of adulthood, all that time I got to experience with him, love him, and learn from him.

Today, the Compassionate Friends organization, for parents who have lost children the world over, has a ceremonial candle lighting at 7:00 p.m. local time to remember their beloved children. I hope you will, too. I will remember Leif, as I do every day.

No More Christmas Presents for My Leif

This January 1976 photo of Leif playing with the rocking horse he got for Christmas 1975, his first Christmas when he was eleven months old, and so many other Christmas photos of him opening presents or joking around with the family through the years, bring it home to me so forcefully that he won't be here to open any gifts this year, or any year from now to the end of our lives. I don't look for presents for him any more, though I can't help but notice and remark upon things I know he would like, things I wish I could give him.

The holidays and his birthday are particularly hard, as are the monthly reminders, each 9th and 10th, of his death and the day we found him. Tomorrow it will be 20 months since we found him in his apartment. Today it is 20 months since he died. Sometimes I wonder how long I will mark the months that have passed since his death, wonder if I will ever pass those days of the month without remembering. How can the months fly by so fast, taking the time we were with him ever farther into our past, yet the memories seem like yesterday, like he could still just walk through our door.

At a party a couple of nights ago, I hugged a neighbor who lost two children. She asked me how I was doing and I truthfully answered that I was all right most of the time, but not all of it. She said, "It never really gets any easier. You just learn to cope with it. The holidays are the hardest. Even though I have my living son and grandchildren, I will always miss the others. You just have to put on a smile and go on."

Sometimes the smile is real. Sometimes it's a good act.

I'm grateful to have a lot to do, to be busy with real work. It doesn't take away all the sadness but it does keep it at arm's length a good part of the time. It does make me feel useful.

But, it doesn't stop me from thinking, in the interstices, of the eternal question, why? of what we might have done to save him, of what he might have done to save himself, of what we are missing, of what he is missing, of what might have been.

Emotions are like being harnessed up to powerful horses

I was thinking this morning as I woke up that our emotions are kinds of like powerful horses that we are harnessed to. Sometimes we are in control of them; sometimes we are not.

Emotions are the real stuff of life. They are what makes it all worthwhile. Without love, joy, happiness, what would life be? Mechanical? Flat and boring?

We are forced to endure the other side of emotion, the sadness, pain and misery, the boredom and ennui, and the grief, because life cannot go on forever, because disasters happen, because those we care about sometimes hurt us, because illness and accidents take a toll. We have no choice but to experience them and feel them. That's when the horses get spooked an run away. We are not in control and it's frightening and miserable.

Because emotions cause chemical changes in the brain they aren't just something we can "decide" on and control completely. We are in some sense at the mercy of the runaway horses.

But we can fight to regain control. We can fight to bring our emotions back to something happier and more stable. We can sieze the reins and sometimes force our will upon them.

However that takes immense effort and a real desire to change one's feelings. One reason it is so hard is that the emotions are natural and we feel that. We feel justified in having them and giving in to them, and to some extent, it's necessary, but there comes a time when negative emotions can become like a bad habit, something we keep feeding and feeling because we don't know the way out . . . or even want to stay there because there is some other goal being met.

I've thought a lot about this in relation to grief. When we lose someone we love, it is not only their death for which we mourn, but the loss of a future together, the loss of our identity as their mother, father, brother, sister; the emptiness where they once filled our hearts. Grief is real and consuming.

But I think it could become a habit, and I think it's possible to want to hang onto it as proof of one's love. How can a good mother be happy ever again when her beloved child is dead? How can she ever get over that loss?

In one sense, she (me) never will. There will always be that sense of missing Leif, of life not being right or complete without him. But gradually, if she is healthy and willing to fight to regain happiness, it's possible to see that letting go of grief doesn't mean letting go of love, doesn't mean letting go of the bond of love and care for that child. Gradually, she will rein in the runaway horses and settle them down, make them trot along a path that leads to something better.

I really do think that it's hard to let go of grief without feeling like a bad mother. You have to come to terms with that, to decide (and yes, it is a decision) that spending the rest of your life making yourself unhappy over something you cannot change doesn't make you a better mother or even a good one; it just makes you unhappy, and that unhappiness spills over onto the others you love.

You can't rush this process. For some it takes a year. For some longer. Some will never get there. But in that initial period you have to let yourself grieve and feel it. You have to mourn, for it is a real loss, and the grieving is not just a mental thing, not even "just" emotional, but a chemical process in the brain.

At some point, though, and it's a point you have to recognize, you find that there are moments and hours when you are happy, when you feel "normal" again. At first they don't last long and you feel guilty when they happen, like somehow you shouldn't feel that way at all as the mother of a dead child. You might even talk yourself into a crying session to "make up" for the happy moments, to "prove" to yourself that you really are sad . . . and of course, you ARE sad, but you are beginning to find your way back out of the hole of misery. Now, when the sadness sets in, you find you can haul yourself up out of it like a tour-de-force. You can pull back on those reins and stop the runaway horses.

Before this point, the things you used to enjoy had lost their luster. Counting your blessings didn't help because you were still constantly reminded of what you lost. But at this point, if you are fortunate, you  begin to realize that life is still precious, that you have spent your time in mourning and it's time to emerge, groom those horses and set off down a better road, time to live the life you have.

That doesn't mean you won't have periods of sadness, times when remembering will bring some tears, or when some trigger you didn't expect will make you turn away to hide the emotions that start to run away again. But they will not be the fabric of your life, but a pattern within that fabric, and you will begin to weave a new way to live.

I sensed I had rounded some kind of corner about three weeks ago, roughly after Leif had been dead for 18 months. I no longer cried so much when I was scanning and working on photos to post on this blog. I could smile at them and feel love, more than sadness, but yes tinged with sadness. I could write posts without crying.

And I could feel enthusiasm for things I had enjoyed before, real enthusiasm, more than I have felt since his death.

Peter noticed this, too. He said the other day that it was the first time he remembers me being spontaneously happy since Leif's death. I think he is right.

Part of this is the healing of time. Part of it is Peter's love and support. Part of it is this blog. And the last piece is coming to the time when I can decide it is all right to be happy again. It is all right to feel less grief. It is all right to fight depression and sadness.

I think when we are at the point when we can tell ourselves this new story that we can slowly begin to change the chemical processes in our brains to something that allows happiness. It doesn't happen quickly and it isn't all or nothing. It's baby steps, but they are in the right direction.

We have to hold onto the reins. The horses are powerful, and they are also wonderful. Life without emotions would be empty and worthless. We need to treasure them, along with our memories, and then figure out how to guide them where we want to go.

I am fortunate that I am at this point. If I were someone like my father or Leif and suffered from severe, chronic depression, I would not be able to do this. Chronic deep depression is not something the sufferer can "decide" to get over, or more precisely, they might make that "decision" but they would not be able to change the chemical processes in the brain that cause that kind of depression. Grief could be said to be a short term "mental illness" because of it's symptoms, but it is a normal process. Clinical depression, however, is not a normal process and it doesn't clear up on it's own. It is the black hole of despair. I am sad that my father and my son went through such misery and found no way out.

I know I will have sad times when something hits me about Leif's death, but I think I am over the worst of the process of grieving. Now I look at these pictures and I smile with love and memories. It won't bring him back, but I am thankful I had him, thankful for those memories, thankful for the years we spent together.

Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? I think if you ask someone that, their answer will depend a lot upon how close they are to the loss. Even Leif, though, in his depression, answered yes. I will, too.
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These two photos of Leif and me were taken by Peter W. in Heidelberg, Germany in August 1978. He was three-and-a-half years old.

In the second one he is sticking out his lower lip. When I was growing up and we kids did that, my mother called it by a Norwegian name. I don't know how to spell them properly in Norwegian, so I can only do it the way it sounds to me. For a boy it was, "struteper," and for a girl it was "struteguri." I used that with my boys, too, so in the lower photo, Leif is a "struteper." Maybe a Norwegian reader will comment and correct me.

My Grandmother & Great-Grandmother Lost Children, Too

It is easy to get lost in one's own grief and loss, to focus on it and feel it so deeply that one loses sight of the pain others have gone through or are experiencing. Sometimes it helps to remember that others have suffered in the same ways. A few days ago a friend, Darren, told me about the "SOS" (Survivors of Suicide) group on Facebook. I read some of the poignant stories there and I can truly understand how they are feeling.

Although suicide has it's own especially painful aspects, any way of losing a beloved son or daughter is a torment. I have thought many times since Leif's death about the loses my grandmother and great-grandmother faced. We never talked about those things. I never knew my great-grandmother, except in the stories my mother told, for she died in 1926, long before I was born. However, the story of her life fascinated me for many reasons, and since Leif's death, even more. She endured the loss of two of her children and her husband and lived to be 86. Her daughter, Issabella, who was less than two years old, died of "brain fever" in 1877, and eleven months later, when she was pregnant with her sixth child, her husband (my great-grandfather) died after he became ill from exposure in the Minnesota January while trying to help find the bodies of two young boys who had gone under the ice on a pond. To endure two such heart-wrenching deaths in less than a year must have been very hard, and how she managed bear her youngest child four months after he husband died and then to keep her family together by taking in boarders, is an inspiring story of courage. As far as I know, there is only one small tintype photo of the infant Issabella and I don't have it scanned.

Her children adored her. Her youngest son, Johnny, named for his father, was only seven when his father died. He went out west as a telegraph operator when he was still in his teens. Later, in 1897 when the Klondike Gold Rush started, he wrote a letter to her telling her that he was going to the Yukon but that he was coming home first to see his mother. He never made it. He was 26 years old. No one ever found out what happened to him, though his older brother who was a steward on trains going out West looked for him wherever he could.

Imagine the pain of not knowing what happened to her son, never having any kind of closure about his disappearance. She had a nice Victorian oak table that stood in the front bay window of her house, and on it was a kerosene "globe" lamp. She kept that lamp lighted every night so that in case Johnny ever came home, he would know there was someone there waiting for him.

I grew up with that story, and I found it poignant even as a child. I now have that oak table, and though I don't keep a lamp burning on it, I fervently wish I could do so in the hopes that one day my Leif might come home.

The top photo in this post is of my great-grandmother, known to the family by the Norwegian word "Besta" which is a nickname from "Grandma." Her name was Martha Sjursdatter Haugsjerd Anderson. The second photo is of her husband, John E. Anderson, who was only 37 when he died. He must have taken the death of his infant daughter hard, too. The photos are probably taken around 1877.

The third photo is the only photo I know of of Johnny. It was probably taken around 1881 when he was around ten years old and living in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

In those days, when a child died, it was common to name a baby born later with the same name. When her sixth child was born in September 1978, she was named Jeanette Isabella Caroline and called Isabella. She became my grandmother. She married Helmer Swenson, and their photos, taken around 1950, are the next ones. They had two children, their son Orrin and my mother, Marion. Although Helmer had only an eighth grade education and Isabella had the equivalent of some high school, they managed to send both of their children to college and they must have been immensely proud of Orrin, who went to medical school and during World War II became a flight surgeon for the Army Air Corps, serving in India. In 1943 when he was stationed in North Carolina, he somehow contracted gas gangrene and died within hours. He was only 30 years old and left behind a wife and five-year-old son. It must have been a terrible shock to his parents, to have such a young and up to that moment health son suddenly dead. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, and they weren't even able to be present for that ceremony. A couple of years ago, when I was in the Washington DC area, I went to find and photograph his grave. I never knew my uncle. He died four years before I was born.

Although I grew up knowing these stories and I knew intellectually that such losses much have been devastating, I, like everyone else who has not experienced the death of one's child, did not in any way fully understand or appreciate what they went through. Now I do.

Many people have said to me that the reason it is so hard to lose a child is because that is not the "natural thing," that children are supposed to outlive their parents. That should be, yes, but it often is not. Before the advent of modern drugs and medical practice, many, many children died of childhood illnesses. Others were lost to accidents. It is only lately in the human story that we could even have an expectation that children would all outlive us, but that expectation is often not granted.

Were they able to get past their grief and remember the years they had with their children as the gifts they were? Will I?

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My father committed suicide at the age of 46, but his parents were spared the grief of that loss. They died relatively young, in their mid-sixties, several years before he took his life.

A Silent Sisterhood

Before Leif died, I knew families grieved over dead children. I sympathized and thought how awful it would be to lose a son or daughter. I cried when they showed the "Honor Roll" of military men and women who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

People die; we hear so much in the news, an accident, a fire, a shooting, a drowning, and then the news moves on. The stories only tell the facts, or part of them, only show a moment of grief, and then it's on to another story. We don't absorb either the real loss and sorrow or the length of it, or how many families grieve every day. Each person is someone's son or daughter, and perhaps someone's sister, brother, wife, husband . . . .

Once past the initial frantic days, the scramble to organize a funeral or memorial service, to notify people, to take care of the things left behind by the deceased, people retreat behind a mask of silence, a pretense of normalcy, pretending to be okay even when they are not.

But when they meet, those women who have lost a child, there is a kind recognition, a kind of sisterhood of loss and grief. They are legion, and they are everywhere among you. You just don't know it until you are one of them. I meet them in so many places now, finding many women who understand but don't talk about it until they meet another of that sisterhood.

After years, many no longer weep, at least not often or openly. They tell me it takes two or three years to get to that point. They can talk about their child and what happened, the hurt and sadness still there, but they learn to live with it, to persevere, and not think about it all the time.

Some of them talk to their dead children, no matter how many years have passed; I think most of them do. One mother who suffered the loss of two children told me that she has decided her children are angels and she prays to them, asks them to watch over her. Another visits her child's grave on her birthday and talks to her. Another visits the site where her son's ashes were scattered. Many believe their children can hear them and they take comfort from this.

I talk to Leif. Like a friend who said that with her dying breath she will be asking, "Why?" I, too, ask him why. I tell him I'm sorry that life turned out so sad for him. I tell him I miss him, and much more. But I have no idea whether he's there, whether anything survives death, and even if it does, whether there's anything that passes between those worlds. It doesn't matter. I will talk to him anyway, because I need to.

Some days I think I'm getting over the worst of the grief. I have hours when I'm absorbed in some project and don't think of him for awhile. But there is always getting up in the morning, each morning, and realizing anew that he is gone from my life forever.

Sometimes, I think my sharp sense of sorrow has been lessened, and then I find that what's really happened is that I'm falling into a funk of mild depression, which deadens feeling and paralyzes action. I find myself procrastinating and letting things go. I have to force myself to get on with life and the things on my list of chores.

In those days, I have the smallest inkling of what depression must have been like for Leif, why he put things off and let things go, but my experience is a mere shadow of his.

In that state, I have the feeling that something is building up like a river behind a dam that's going to fail, and I'll have a flood of tears when it does. It's necessary, apparently, but it doesn't resolve anything in the end. It's just a temporary release.

The oddest things will make me think of him and the tears will slide down, just a few silent ones. Tonight we went to a play about Merrick, the broadway producer of many hits. The show was written by a man who lives not far from us. One of the songs from "Oliver" was sung by a handsome blond boy, and it wasn't intended to be about a man looking for love, rather about a boy looking for someone to love him like a mother, but the words could just as well have been written for a lonely man seeking love. "Where is love?" expressed Leif's longing and made me very sad.

I don't know about men and whether they share anything about their feelings at the loss of a son or daughter with each other, but now I do know about this silent sisterhood, those mothers like me who have lost someone inexpressibly precious, someone to whom they gave life and in which they invested love and hope.

We are all around you, and I hope you never join us in this silent sisterhood.