DESCONECTARSE

In January of this year I lost my 20 year old son, Michael, to SUDEP.  I will explain SUDEP and Epilepsy on a subsequent post.  The shock of losing my son suddenly and unexpectedly has changed our lives drastically.  There is the material and emotional change of having one less person in our home and all that comes with that.  But there are also almost imperceptible changes to our inner selves that we are still exploring and will continue to discover for years to come.

"There is no way out, only a way forward." --Michael Hollings.  One of the things that you learn when you have experienced severe grief is that you can't escape it.  You just have to keep breathing, keep living, keep praying, keep believing that one day you will come to the other side of the grief.  I am still in my grief.  I can stand still or I can go forward.  Those are the choices that I have.  I choose to gently keep going forward.  And that brings me to Desconectarse.  

Desconectarse is a form of a spanish verb for “disconnect”.  The Spanish use it to express “stepping away from what inhibits you so that you can be who you should be”.  I have been told by others experiencing the loss of a long time loved one that you change and become a new person or just MORE.  I don't know who the new ME is going to be.  I don't know how she will feel, or look, or live.  The world is almost as NEW to me as it is still the same.  I hope that through writing my feelings and sharing my experiences that I can come to know and understand this new me and "become who I should be".

As I share my recovery from the loss of my beloved child, the survival of my childhood, divorce, and other losses that have affected my life; I hope that I can pass on the lessons that I have learned, the positives that have emerged, the joys that I have found and my solid foundation of faith and hope.