Those Left Behind

                Robert’s death had an impact on everyone who knew him.  For his family, the impact was life shattering.  It was simply inconceivable to think that he would suddenly one day be gone from our lives forever.

There are no words to describe what it is like to bury a son or daughter.  Only those who have experienced such a loss truly know how it feels.  A part of yourself dies when you lose a child. 

Everyone handles grief differently.  Some deal with it better than others, but no one is ever totally the same as they were before their loss.  You don’t ever completely “get over it.”  You simply learn to live with what happened and try to move forward with your life.

During the first couple of weeks after Robert's death I couldn’t concentrate on anything.  I had no appetite.  I couldn’t sleep.  I would see a television program or commercial that featured a father and son and I would break down.

Everywhere I looked I saw Robert.  His backpack and schoolbooks on the desk where he once studied.  When Robert move back home we used the bath towels that I had bought him when he first moved out to share an apartment with friends.  The sight of those towels brought a lump in my throat.  We had shelves in the laundry room with each kid’s name on it where there were laundry baskets that my wife placed their clean socks and underwear in.  Robert’s basket sat empty on that shelf for some time before my wife felt it was “safe” to remove it.

Robert’s memory is in my mind at least once every single day.  Some may call that an obsession.  I submit that you simply cannot forget that you have lost something that was a very part of your body, not even for one day.  I hope that never changes.  I don’t want one day to pass where I do not at least acknowledge the memory of that gift that God gave me and let me enjoy for almost 21 years.

Quite honestly, I don’t know how Robert’s mother is dealing with this loss.  Our relationship was strained after our divorce, and although I tried to make peace for the sake of our surviving son, little has changed.  I have no doubt that her pain is as gut wrenching as mine.  Despite our differences, there is no doubt in my mind that she loved him with all her heart.

I will never forget the wailing screams that Robert’s mother let out as she collapsed to her knees on the gravel road beside the ambulance where we were standing when they told us Robert was dead.  Even with the bitterness that followed our divorce, I still hurt deeply as I watched the mother of my child scream in agony to the terrible news that we had just been told.

My brother-in-law, Thomas, was at my side during that long hour as we waited in the ambulance to learn if the truck they were trying to remove from the water was indeed Robert’s.  He also went with me to the office of the Justice of The Peace to learn of the complete autopsy results that had just been mailed to him.  Thomas, you’ll never know how much your presence during those difficult days meant to me, and how I drew strength from that presence.

Out of respect for the privacy of my son Douglas, I will not go into detail on how the loss of Robert affected him, except to say that he has had a difficult time in dealing with his brother’s death. 

My mother has had an extremely hard time in dealing with the loss of her firstborn grandchild.  For a period of time we actually avoided seeing each other because neither of us could hide the pain from our eyes, and we didn’t want to upset one another.  There is no doubt that she, like all of us, grieves the loss of Robert daily to some degree.

My wife Paula, who grew to love Robert as if he was her own son, had a very difficult time at first.  She held her feelings in for a long period of time as she tried to remain strong for me.  Finally she broke down one day and said she was having trouble accepting Robert’s death.  In fact, she was truly in denial.  She cried, "I don’t know that Robert is dead.  All I saw were a bunch of pictures set up around a blue casket that they told me he was in.  We didn’t get to see Robert in that casket.  Are they sure it was Robert?  How do we know that the body they found in that truck was someone who was riding with Robert that day, and that Robert was hurt but got out of the truck and is wandering around somewhere not knowing who he is?”

Paula was “grasping for straws,” holding out a glimmer of hope that this was all just a mistake and that Robert would soon find his way back home and walk in the door and say “What’s for dinner?”

Then one day I found her in tears and she said, “I’ve accepted it.  I know Robert is dead and is never going to walk through that door, and it hurts like hell!”  Another night of tears; another small step on this long road they call “grief.”

Paula, by her own admission, cannot begin to conceive what I am dealing with inside.  As much as she loved Robert, she knew him for less than two years.  As she herself said, she didn’t give birth to him, change his diapers, see him take his first wobbly steps, cheer at his first baseball game or watch him graduate from high school.

Robert’s friends were each affected by his death, with some more profound.  Although none of them to my knowledge has quit drinking, they have certainly adjusted their thinking.  Now when they go out they take turns on who will be the designated driver.  Before Robert’s death, by their own admission, none of them would have given a second thought to that.

A couple of years ago several of Robert’s friends gathered in a studio to participate in the video I produced of Robert’s story.  As hard as the guys tried, it was difficult to hold back their emotions as they recalled the times they shared with Robert.  As Lexie, his former girlfriend said during the filming of the video, “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Robert.  It’s been over a year and it still hurts.  It still hurts.”  Your statement is so true, Lexie.  It still hurts.

What you have read here is part of the aftermath of one person’s bad decisions, and how everyone who knew and loved them has been affected.  If you drink and drive, or place your personal safety at risk in other ways, please understand that a tragic outcome will not just affect you.  It will forever change the lives of the ones you leave behind.

The following was posted on a message board on a website where grieving parents share how they are adjusting to the loss of their child, and offer emotional support to one another.  Young people especially, please read the words this mother wrote, and don’t put yourself in a position where your mother might one day be writing words such as these:

Good morning all. It is one of those mornings when you wake up with swollen eyes. Tears and fears from the night before have taken control. You go to bed and no sooner than your head hits the pillow it all begins. The memories, the good, the bad and the ones that pull your world apart. Last night I lay down and the first thoughts through my mind is the day. The day I received the call. Even now I cannot believe that I was just told that she is gone. What do you mean gone, are you crazy?  What are you talking about? Surely you don't know what you're saying? Even now I think it must be a terrible mistake, she is here. But then this pain in my heart, the tears in my eyes tell me now that it is so. And you begin to think of so many things, the last days together, the last words you spoke and the last smiles you shared. I think how it has been 3 years and how she was only 16 and now soon she will be 20. Twenty, twenty, no that just can't be, she was just 16. She never really got to be 16. Trying to hold back the shudders taking over my body, trying to stifle the need to let go. I quietly slip out of bed and head outside. Raindrops falling like tears, I stand there in the darkness trying to reason, trying to control the scream I want to release. Searching for tissues, searching for answers and once again still searching for peace. I look to the skies wanting so much to see her face, I talk to her telling her how much I love her and how I miss her so very much. I ask God to help me, help to soothe the pain and put the pain to rest tonight. It slowly subsides and I feel a bit comforted. Back inside, slipping so quietly back to bed. No need to wake my husband. Yes he is my strength too, but tonight it is my memories, my pain and sometimes these are not to share. This night is one for me to survive, because somehow, which I still don't understand how but yet somehow tomorrow comes. And with trails of tears on my face and sorrow in my eyes, I begin a new day. And now this morning I'll wash away the tears and I'll search out the smiles to be found in a new day. It has been 3 years and there are still those nights, and there will still be in the years to come I am sure. Today is a new day and I know it is up to me to go on.  

I have no idea if the woman who wrote those words lost her daughter in an alcohol related crash.  I do, however, know the feelings she writes of.  Every parent who has lost a son or daughter can identify with those words.

Based on email I have received, I know some bereaved parents find their way to this website.  For those of you who are grieving the loss of a child, or the loss of anyone you loved, I share with you the following.  A young man who had lost his brother in a boating accident sent it to me a few days after Robert’s funeral.  These words helped me to better understand the emotions I was dealing with then, as well as now.  I pray they bring you comfort as well.

             This is what you will leave behind if you end up being a “statistic.”  Please make decisions that you, and those who love you, can live with.

This site is best viewed with Netscape 6.0 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher.