Life as it "should" be

This is the preface to my book, "Look Around; A Mother's Journey from Grief and Despair to Healing and Hope."

Most of us have an assumption about life. We assume it will be a charmed life, despite a few challenges. We assume we will grow up, and maybe go to college. We assume we will get a job that we like, find a partner, and get married. We assume we will, if we choose, have as many kids as we want, and that they will be healthy. We assume they will grow up, play baseball, take dance and music classes, become educated, get married and have as many kids as they want. And naturally this means we will have grandchildren and spend years with them, enjoying them, watching them grow and graduate. We will grow old, and one day we will die peacefully with our loving kids and grandkids around us. It is assumptive. For many, we assume this will be our life. Despite the hardships – financial woes, breakups, job losses or unplanned career changes – we assume we will get past all that and continue on with our planned life. And anything really bad – plane crashes, natural disasters that wipe out thousands, mass shootings - those things only happen to other people.

Unless one day there is a knock on your door and you open it to find the county sheriff and the county coroner standing there to tell you that your son has died.

And, from one second to the next, the world as you knew it has ceased to be. The life you assumed you would have has shattered. Nothing will ever be the same again.

How? How could this happen? How could this happen to us?

This is the story of my journey through that assumptive world, and beyond, into grief, despair, rage, and eventually healing and hope. This is the story about the grief journey my family and I took since my son’s transition to the other side. This is the story of my own spiritual journey.

And this is the story of Eric, a model son, a loving sibling, a loyal friend, and a musician with a heart of gold, who left his physical body at age 24, and how he came here to change us, to affect us, to make us better, and to remind us to look around and appreciate the wonders of this beautiful world that we take for granted.