Letting Go of My Son - Patricia Forbes

Letting Go of My Son Louis Patricia Forbes, Excerpted from Healing Life’s Broken Dreams (iUniverse)

As New Year’s Eve approached, I made a promise to myself that I was going to make some serious changes in my life. Tony, my boyfriend, had been so wonderful over the years, and had gone through years of nightmares, personality changes, setbacks, anger, and grief with me. I needed to step back and look at myself through his eyes. When I did, I was amazed that he was still with me at all!

You expect your family to always understand and accept what you have become, but your boyfriend certainly doesn’t have to. The months and years of roller-coaster rides were not worth the falls, at least not for him. I needed to make things right, no matter what I had to do. The sudden realization that I had changed so much over the years since my son Louis’s death was almost too much to accept. What had become of me? I felt so old, and so tired of the person I had become. I didn’t know her anymore, and I didn’t want to know her. I had so few feelings left inside that I felt like a shell. I couldn’t imagine what he really thought of me. Maybe he was hoping to get the old Pat back, and he had held on, hoping against hope that a miracle would happenCand one did.

In early March, my cousin Lynn called; it was a call that would change my life forever. As we talked, she said, almost casually, “Why don’t you write a book on everything you have been through? You could help a lot of people; perhaps give them the help you could never find.”

I thought about it for a few weeks, and then one day, I sat down at the computer and started typing, letting emotions that had been inside of me for thirty years flow onto the paper. I continued writing, more for therapy for myself at first, and then for all those people who had been through years of pain and grief and couldn’t find help themselves.

As I completed each chapter, Lynn would always offer her support, encouragement, and confidence in me, which kept me going throughout the long months of writing. When I needed to stop and take a few weeks off because of the painfulness of the story, I would get discouraged, and she would always say, AJust wait until you’re ready; it will come to you.” And you know what? She was right. After a few weeks, I would sit back down at the computer and start typing again, picking up right where I had left off. It was a cathartic experience for me.

As spring turned to summer, Tony and I went down to the Cape again for a few weeks, bringing my mother and Tony’s sister Anne with us. We had a great time, and I enjoyed the ocean, the salt air, and a sense of peacefulness I hadn’t felt in years. Anne and I talked, and she knew I had finally changed. We celebrated the old Pat’s return. My mother and Tony went fishing, and time flew by.

As fall approached, we closed up the pool and waited for the holidays to roll around once again. In November, as I sat at my computer, a few weeks before what would be the sixth anniversary of my son’s death, I started crying. I was tired of the pain in my heart, and my body ached to release all the grief I had experienced for so long, always willing myself to feel the emptiness and heartacheCthat knife stabbing me over and over again, year after year.

I was mentally and physically exhausted. I had punished myself unmercifully. I wanted a life back. I needed to feel again. Then I did something I thought I had forgotten how to do: I prayed to Louis to give me some kind of sign that it was all right for me to let go. Then I prayed to God for the strength to do just that.

What happened next can only be explained as a series of miracles. The bracelet that Louis had given me so many years ago fell off. I felt his presence, and felt he was telling me to keep it off this time. I looked at it for several minutes, then walked into my bedroom and hung it next to his gold cross.

A few nights later, I dreamed I was standing at the cemetery with Louis holding my hand, and then suddenly he was gone. When I woke up the next morning, I finally knew what this dream meant: he didn’t want me to keep going to the cemetery. I always cried when I was there, and it was so painful. Now he was telling me not to go. He wasn’t there, he was in my heart and in my memories.

On the day after Thanksgiving, Tony and I went down to the Cape again for our long weekend. On, Sunday, as we headed down the highway to do some shopping, we saw cars swerving in and out of the lane. It was a main highway, and traffic was moving as fast as sixty-five miles per hour, then suddenly it started to slow down. We couldn’t see anything ahead of us, and figured there was a dead animal in the road.

As we got closer, we saw something small and white running in and out of traffic. We finally realized that it was a dog and started to slow down. As I looked up ahead, I saw a truck approaching in the opposite direction. I knew that if we didn’t do something, the dog would be killed. I screamed to Tony and opened the door of his Pathfinder. The truck swerved off the road to avoid hitting the dog, which ran across the highway under Tony’s truck and jumped into my lap. It all happened in a matter of seconds. It happened so fast that I wasn’t even sure what had happened.

I shut the door to the truck, unzipped my jacket, and put the dog under it, and then held him close. He was shaking uncontrollably, wet from the rain, and scared to death. As I held the dog close to me, I could feel his heart racing. There was no collar on him, he was covered with ticks and fleas, and I had the feeling he had been abused. We notified the MSPCA and also went online to check for missing dogs. Once we got him home, I brought him to the vet to see if he had a microchip to identify an owner, but all he found was fleas, ticks, and a severe ear infection.

As I looked down and saw his little face staring up at me, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, a feeling that an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders, the weight of a lifetime of pain, grief, and sadness, all rolled up into one. And my heart filled with so much love for this little dog that it was beyond anything I had felt since Louis had died. Then I realized what the date was: I had buried my son exactly six years ago to the day. Was my son sending me one final gift, or was this just a coincidence? It was as if the sky had opened up and dropped this dog right onto my lap. I hadn’t been able to save my son’s life, but I had saved this dog’s life.

Tony and I looked at each other, and he said, “I don’t know what just happened, but this dog is lucky to be alive. What do you want to name him?”

I looked at him, grinned, and said, “You just said it: Lucky.” I knew at that moment that I had to stop holding on and let my son go.

Excerpted from Healing Life’s Broken Dreams

Patricia Forbes grew up in the small town of Hopedale, Massachusetts. After graduating from high school, she worked for the telephone company for thirty-three years. In 2003, she retired to pursue other interests and decided to write Healing Life’s Broken Dreams: a story of healing and recovery. Patricia is working towards becoming a certified grief counselor. She enjoys horseback riding, working out, reading, and spending summers at the ocean. She lives in Hopedale with her boyfriend, Tony, and their dog, Lucky. For more information: http://www.lifeafterlouis.com/

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