My brick.

"Does it ever go away?"

"This Feeling?"

"No I don't think it does, Not for me it hasn't."

"It changes though."

"How?"

"I don’t know. The weight of it, I guess. At some point it becomes bearable. It turns into something you can crawl out from under, and carry around — like a brick in your pocket. And you forget it every once in a while, but then you reach in for whatever reason and there it is: Oh, right. That. Which can be awful. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s kinda ... not that you like it exactly, but it’s what you have instead of your son, so you don’t wanna let go of it either. So you carry it around. And it doesn’t go away, which is ..."

"What?"

"Fine...actually."

-Rabbit Hole, 2010

I insisted we watch this movie, "The Rabbit Hole," for my birthday. When I saw the previews for it, it actually didn't really strike me as "a good movie." Not that a movie about loosing a child would be a good movie. But I thought they portrayed the story quite wrong from what I saw in the three minute excerpts. Boy was I wrong. And not in a good way. I personally, living the plot of the story, "loosing a child," say BOO to this movie. 

The emotional rollercoaster these two parents are on, yes, but sadly they make "angel parents," seem as though they completely go off the deep end. I'm sure there are some. But for people, who have never experienced a loss of this greatness, they are reaching out in this movie like an outsider peeking through someones window. Never have I seemed emotionally "unstable" as the mother seems to be in this movie. Eight months pass, and she cannot even bring herself to be intimate with her husband, and she drops out of her "bereaved parents support group." The husband, whom decides to continue to attend, strikes up a "fling" with one of the women who has been in the group for eight years, and who's husband happens to leave her at the exact same time that the wife leaves the group. The end up doing drugs together, and come very close to having an affair. 

Aside from me disagreeing with the story line, of what could and should have been a very honorable movie for those who have lost a child and those who carry that "brick" around in their pocket, the one quote from the movie was so true. And so very deep... And it sums it all up. 

 A brick in our pocket.

Everyone who thought they lost something in the moment of our childs death has moved on. (Or they never mention it to the parents, which I assure you is far worse.) Not being judgmental or critical, just acknowleging reality. As where, even when the darkness subsides for mothers and fathers who loose their precious creations, there is always a weight that they carry through day to day life. 

I woke this morning to prepare Sarah for school. Same daily repition. Get her dressed. Make her breakfast. Make her lunch while she brushes her teeth. Brush & do her hair. Shoes and jackets on. Out the door. The sun cannot even peek through the clouds today, so a grey darkness loomed around us. It wasn't until I was driving up our street that I realized...

Life continues after we say goodbye.

We may not want it to, and we may not accept it.

But it does. 

We wake every morning,

and do our best to complete the tasks at hand.

Whether it be taking our children to school,

or doing the dishes in the sink.

The pain lessens, yes,

but through every single daily chore we accomplish,

there it is...

A weight no one else can see.

No one else can feel.

Some people choose not to even notice.

Our brick.

And the movie is exactly right...

We reach for it every once and awhile.

Because it is all we have,

 from loosing our sons or daughters.

And we would never want that weight to go away.

Whether we are a mother...

Or a Father.