Thank you everyone for sharing your stories. Our beautiful son was taken from us suddenly in a car accident just 2 days before his 20th birthday last month - and now we are part of a world of grief and pain. Our family is close and loving but somehow it seems as though now we have been thrown into this new place where nothing is predictable any more. I live in terror that it will happen again, that another of my children will die, that I will die. I look normal but I am changed forever. Some days I feel like I am OK, and then I am back at the beginning, seeing his face, replaying the events of that normal day that turned into every parent's worst nightmare, wishing I could hold him one more time and feel his arms around me. He had so much to live for and that changed in an instant. I know that other people don't, can't understand and I do have friends who do, but it is too early to call them, I wouldn't be able to speak for crying, wouldn't be able to breathe for grieving. I will wait for now and when I can take that step I will. I wonder though, will I ever be strong enough. I do need to be strong for his brothers and sister, for his dad, for myself. His grandparents are bereft, his friends inconsolable. I feel like I need to be there for them but I have no stregth, no reserves of energy, just the shell that is me, going on each day, held up only by the prayers and love of others. I was busy last weekend, back at work and people said 'you are so strong, you are doing so well', but they didn't know that I was not really there, I had sent my body but my heart and soul were still curled up in bed, crying.
