You Never, Ever Get Over It, But You Try To Move Forward

Sometimes I dream that I am falling.

There is never any bottom to this well.

I am falling into blackness.  In slow motion down the rabbit hole but instead of jars of marmalade and lovely tins — there are flashes of a life that was supposed to be.

When I lost my son I thought I would die. 

It felt as if my chest was griped in a vice and every breath was torture.  How could one be expected to live like this? I thought about jumping off a bridge.  I am fearful of heights, and there was no bridge high enough to give me anything but a broken leg, but jumping just seemed right. 

I was falling… into despair and depression, and my life seemed like it was coming undone.

I was offered antidepressants, but the cure I wanted was my son returned to me. 

Somehow, I managed to keep going, though the thought of killing myself was strangely comforting. 

Like there was a Plan B, an exit route from the well of grief, that there could be an end to my descent.  There were probably a million reasons and no reason at all why I never went past those dark thoughts. 

I wouldn’t say that I am whole again, but I am mended, like a china cup that slips from soapy hands.  I have been glued back together — but the cracks remain.

I think about the time I wanted to jump off a bridge almost every day as I drive across one that accounts for so many tragic ends to broken lives. 

I wonder if those people were falling, too.

By Jennifer Gunter