How can I keep breathing?
Losing a child, a mother's memoir.
by
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I had a friend over, we were having tea and I was making cream puffs when my daughter came flying through the kitchen door, throwing herself on the couch and said “its Ben’s turn now and I might go for another ride when they get back, if they hurry.”
Our dog started barking like crazy and I poked my head out the door and told him to be quiet, but he didn’t stop. That was unlike him, he was a very good dog that way. Out in the country a lot of people do not have doorbells. We had a four legged one. I hollered at him again and again he did not stop. I figured maybe the bike had broken down and the guys were talking and walking up the road and that’s what the dog heard. They did not show up.
Now I was starting to get a little concerned because it was quickly getting dark, the sun was going down. With the dog still barking and my stomach starting to turn, my daughter said with her arms tightly across her chest, “They better hurry; I want to go for another ride before it gets too dark out. Ben’s having a way longer ride then I got!”
A few minutes later someone drove up the driveway. It was another friend of mine. When she came in I asked her if she wanted a cup of tea.
She said “No, you have to come with me, there has been an accident.” So I put my shoes and jacket on and climbed in her van and asked her “Is Benjamin okay?” She did not answer me, but the look on her face horrified me. “Please tell me he’s okay, please, please, please!” She just stayed silent.
Being brought up a devout catholic, I was praying and praying the whole way. We got up the road and I saw police lights going, thinking to myself “I hadn't heard any sirens.” That could have been why the dog was barking so much though.
We were directed to the side of the road and put in a police car. We seemed to sit there for ages. Finally my friend turned to me and said “Olivia, Benjamin is gone, he has passed away.”
I’m not sure I heard her right! Then I realized that this was no joke nor would she pull such a thing on me. I bolted from the police car where I was met by a police officer right away. He didn’t seem to want to tell me anything. I asked him “What has happened to my son?”
He looked all around then said “I have to find my supervisor Ma’am.”
“Oh no you don’t, you will just tell me right fucking now!!” I yelled
“I want to know what happened right now! Is my son dead?”
Then he looked at me and said “I am sorry to say, but yes he is.”
I felt my heart break, shatter on the spot and my stomach came up to my throat. I took as deep a breath as I could muster and asked again in a very quiet voice “Could you please tell me what happened?”
I remembered that the police officer could not look at me. As he stared at the ground he said “They went down a logging road and it had a chain across it.” I was horrified! I put my hand up to my throat and looked up at the officer.
He said “No Ma’am, the chain did not hit there. It hit the bike tire which stopped the bike right away and your son was squished between the bike gas tank and the man with him. Then the bike flew backward and they were both thrown off. This may not help you right now, but your son was killed instantly.” Well, he was right. It did not help at the time, but it did later on.
“DARK, TOO DARK, I CAN’T SEE HIM! I CAN’T SEE MY BOY!” I shouted, “I need to see my boy!” I heard someone say that I should not look, which made me angry.
So I asked someone to shine a light on him for me. Thank goodness my request was heard and a flashlight was shone on my boy. All I could really do was to kneel down on the road and kiss him goodbye. They didn’t want me to do that, but I did it anyway, because I needed to.
I stood up and then screamed at the top of my lungs. I must have moved the mountain. I was in total shock, shaken to my very foundation, my heart hurt like I had never felt before.
I remember an ambulance attendant coming up to hug me, saying “You have to cry.”
I replied in a daze, “I can’t.” What I heard next would have shocked me had I not already been there.
She said “If you don’t cry I may have to pinch you.” She should have known that some people in shock can’t cry immediately.
My friend drove me home, but home was never the same again. Now I had to tell my other friend, but worse than that, my daughter. I had to tell my daughter that her little brother, classmate and very best friend would never be coming home again. “How do I do that?” I thought to myself. She is only six and a half years old. So, I told her, but was not sure that she understood. But right then I did not know what else to do.
Just then the phone rang and it was my husband. “Hi, I just wanted to tell you that I am going on to the next town and I’ll be a couple more hours.”
“NO, you have to come home right now. Something has happened and you need to come home right now!” I yelled then hung up the phone.
About fifteen minutes later I was sitting outside on the porch wrapped in a blanket, still not crying. I’m just stared into space not believing what had happened or knowing if I could even breathe. My husband drove up the driveway at that point, got out of the car and said “What happened did my Grandmother pass?”
“No, it wasn't your grandmother, it was Benjamin.” I could not even look at him. He did not believe me, which I could understand. He got mad, thinking I was messing with him.
By then I was having huge problems breathing. It felt like I was choking and grasping for my next breath like it wasn't natural and I got very hot although it was a bit chilly outside.
“It’s true,” I said “They went out on the bike after dinner, down that logging road you guys always go down. This time there was a chain across that road and the bike hit it.”
He punched the log wall of the house. I thought he had broken his hand. “I have to see him. I have to see him right now! I won’t believe it until I see it myself!” He shouted. I went into the house and phoned the funeral home and told the fellow that we had to come right away. He said that it was pretty late, but decided he would let us in. It was late, it was about 1:30 am, but time meant nothing to us.
The town was thirty minutes away but it seemed like we made it there in fifteen or even less. Everything was so surreal. We did not speak, but I repeated over and over in my head that this could not be true and I would wake up at any moment. I don’t know what was going through my husband’s mind.
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About the Book
One of life’s hardest blows is to suffer the loss of a child. How Can I Keep Breathing? offers insight and validation to the initial feelings and behaviours that arise from such a trauma, including the struggle to keep on going and the various ways family members cope with this kind of tragedy. Author Olivia Sunshine also shows, through her personal experience, a way of turning loss and pain into an ongoing opportunity to becoming a more fully developed and integrated human being. It is the silver lining that seems so impossible to find when one’s heart has been so badly shattered. The effect of such a loss resonates throughout the rest of each family member’s life, even for siblings born after such a tragedy, creating a lifelong relationship with the deceased child. How Can I Keep Breathing? goes into detail the struggle with this and the coming to terms with it.
Death invites examination of our beliefs about it, asking what, if anything, lies after death. Olivia gives a compassionate view of different ways of handling the death of a child, showing how the spiritual path she chose helped her cope with the loss of her son and how it changed her life for the better in more ways than she could have imagined.
About the Author
Olivia Sunshine has answered a calling that has been whispering since she was a small girl. After the loss of a child, she has become an ordained reverend minister for the Spiritualist church and a certified counseling hypnotherapist; she continues her studies in these areas. Olivia lives with her husband and three boys in the mountains of beautiful British Colombia, Canada.