Dinner with friends

B and I drove Saturday night to a small dinner party. Just six of us - all of us parents of dead children. The hosting couple lost both a daughter and a son in 2004 and 2006 respectively. The other couple lost their daughter in 2006, the same year we lost B.W. What a blast, right? Hanging out with other bereaved families is our idea of a good time?

I remember sitting in a support group meeting for the first time with both of these couples. I was so strangely relieved to see other kind (and broken) faces in the room. Sitting there, bawling our eyes out, sharing our love for our sweet boy, we learned we were not alone. It was the first time I felt any real relief from my total and complete devastation since B.W.'s death several weeks before. I was not the only mother who was without her child. My body wasn't the only failure out there. Our primal ache to hold our child and our endless flow of tears - these were all familiar to the other parents in the group. It was so comforting. I had no idea two of the couples would become friends. And at the time, I couldn't fathom that the six of us would ever laugh and truly live again.

On Saturday, two years and 2-3 months since we first met, the conversation flowed so easily between jobs, the economy, wine, our children (alive and dead), the weather, vacations, basement refinishings, our grief, our family and friends' support (or lack there of), God and heaven, our lives before and after we lost our child(ren). There was laughter. A LOT of it. There were tears. And it was so comfortable. None of the topic avoidance or egg-shell walking or sugar coating that we so often find with most everyone else in our lives. We all recognize how different life is when you've lost a daughter or son. We know that we have come a long way but that getting back to "normal" will never happen for us. We actually like the people we have become.

I am so thankful for these friendships - the women in particular. I am not sure I could go on in the ways I have without them. They are my respite from the elephant in the room who is always following me around. They listen to me, really hearing me. They feel my pain with me and don't even attempt to hide from it. They call or write to say they are thinking of B.W. on his birthday and during holidays. They remember I have two boys - all the time - and recognize I love them equally. They know it's hard to live in a world that for the most part doesn't understand and doesn't care about the loss of my son.

So, yes, it WAS a blast on Saturday night. I love hanging out with other bereaved friends who are on a journey to embrace their new lives, dead child(ren) and all. I never feel more content to be in my own skin than when I'm with these friends.