“There are no words” is an expression often used to truly describe deep grief. It’s a feeling in your gut, your stomach, that you notice only when the world around you is crumbling, and those important to you are experiencing something truly awful. That’s the way I feel now. A grief has set in and there are no words to describe this feeling.
Word came early today that two families we know lost their young sons last night in a fire. The news has spread through our community as it often does these days through text messages and quick phone calls. Parents want to know more. The children’s friends want to know more. Everyone wants the story, wants to learn what happened, wants desperately to learn it’s all untrue, but every new text and call confirms it. Parents like me sit quietly, imagining the grief these families must be facing. I knew these boys. There were like our boys. We watched them on the football fields and basketball courts and saw their parents in the stands. My tears won’t stop.
My first instinct was to call my son and hear his voice. He’s in Tuscaloosa for the summer, and I just needed to know he was okay. I called repeatedly with no answer until, finally, I heard my son’s voice pick up, and…I couldn’t speak. Such gratefulness to hear him alive. These two deceased sons had parents who would do anything in their power to hear what I just heard from their own sons.
Our community is crashing right now. We’ve all been gutted with the news. All plans for the holiday weekend have been greatly dampened. There can be no celebration, Fourth of July or otherwise, with his awfulness in the forefront in our minds. Celebration is not a word that will come from our mouths or be a part of our actions for a long time to come.
Losing a child is losing your future. It’s losing stories and memories and cherished moments that were never given a chance. It’s forever wondering what that child would have been like as an adult, a parent, an aunt or uncle. Never seeing their joy at their wedding, never seeing their humility and awe while holding their own newborn baby, never witnessing their pride watching their own children succeed. Their death has robbed each of our lives and our community of two glorious young men and their future and we can only guess at what could have been.
In time we’ll talk about the weather again or sports or our plans for an upcoming vacation, but no time soon. Our community will fall together and hope to find support from one another and, in turn, try to offer some sort of support to those around us that need it. What’s happened is wrong. It’s not fair. It’s devastating, and it has brought all of us to our knees with a deep grief in the pit of our stomach that no words can describe.
