“…people die twice: when they physically die,
and when we stop telling stories about them.”
Carol LaChapelle, from Finding Your Voice Telling Your Stories
This has been a favorite quote of mine for many years. I used to think of it as I’d write my ancestors stories, feeling a satisfaction that I was keeping their memories alive. But the people we want to keep alive in this one small way aren’t always our ancestors. Sometimes they’re our children.
In Mothers of Angels, due to be released at the end of the month, over twenty authors gather in a collaborated effort to pay tribute to children that have gone from this earthly plane far too soon. Some were children that never drew breath, or lived long enough to learn what sandy soil feels like beneath a bare foot. Others brightened their family’s lives – yet were taken when they were still learning to live the life of a growing child, never getting the chance to become an adult, to drive, to vote, to get a job and earn a living. Other tales are shared of children that became adults – in the turning-18, legal sense – yet, they too never had the chance to show the world what they could become. Our babies, no matter their age, no matter if they had children of their own, are still are babies. They aren’t supposed to die before we do.
Despite the pain we feel as parents that lost our angels too soon, despite the difficult journey we travel as we learn to live and love again, beauty remains from the short lives of our angels. We remember their smiles, their cheerfulness, and their sweet spirits. They left tracks on our hearts. They leave the world with lessons and a legacy.
As parents, we learn to live with a new normal. Our lives will never be the same. We all grieve differently. The circumstances of each child’s death are all different. Tips and advice for newly grieving parents are included in this book, along with resources for further help and consolation.
Through the month of May, you can get your copy of Mothers of Angels at a special pre-publication price of $9.99 (regularly priced $15.99) or get a PDF for $4.99 the week of May 28th, before the book is available on Amazon.
Here is an excerpt from Mothers of Angels, The Son of My Heart.
In Memory of
Mark Aland Gloyd
November 25, 1981 – December 28, 2004
The Son of My Heart
By Trisha Faye
The beginning of the end is so vivid in my memory. The rest of the journey as we watched Mark’s young life trail to a close isn’t near as clear – most likely because I’ve semi-blocked out the painful months that followed.
Mark became my son the easy way. I didn’t birth him. I didn’t potty train him. I didn’t teach him how to tie his shoes. When I met Mark, he was 16 years old and already driving. Another plus. I didn’t have to navigate the treacherous waters of being a parent of a just learning driver!
This third son of mine was just older than my two boys. One of my favorite pictures is Mark starting to back out of the driveway on the first day of school. Chris, was a freshman that year and Mark drove them both to the high school. Justin was still in junior high and had to suffer by walking the few blocks to the junior high. In the picture, Chris throws up his hands in mock embarrassment – Oh no! Mom’s taking another picture. Meanwhile, Mark, enjoying his role of chauffeur was grinning from ear to ear.
Thus began the journey of Mark blending right into this family of sorts. Older than my boys for a few years, with his youthful zest for life and his spirit, he and the boys soon bonded into my trio of offspring. He and Chris being closer in age were especially close, while Justin was closer in age to Mark’s sisters.
Mark was his dad’s Mini-Me. Those two were so close. I remember back and it’s just like yesterday when he’d amble into the house, harassing his dad – most often on purpose, just to see if he could get a rise out of Dennis. Mark was a Police Explorer for many years and loved every moment of it. His favorite show was COPS and Walker: Texas Ranger. I couldn’t begin to count the hours that he and his dad sat on the sofa watching every episode they could. All I need to hear is a few bars and ‘bad boys…bad boys…what’cha gonna do?’ comes hurling through my mind, taking me back to the years before the horror.
The beginning of the end. Chris had graduated by this time and moved in with his dad, Greg; the two working together as electricians. They took Mark on, who basked in his new role of learning the electrical trade. With the early mornings required at construction sites, Mark often spent most of the week there to avoid the hour-long drive up and down the hill to his grandparents.
In August 2005, Mark got sick. He was so sick he couldn’t work and couldn’t even drive to come visit his dad and I. His dad, Chris and Greg all urged Mark to go to the doctor. Stubborn kid. He wouldn’t go. After a few more days, Greg called me. “Mark needs to get to a doctor.”
I called Mark’s cell phone. “Your dad and I are coming to pick you up. We’re taking you to Urgent Care.”
He couldn’t argue with me. Sick boys can’t argue with their mama’s – even if we’re not the one that gave birth to them. We carted him to Urgent Care where the diagnosis was a kidney infection, potentially more serious because he only had one kidney. The doctor prescribed medication and he had to go to his primary doctor the next day. The primary doctor gave him another prescription and then wanted some lab work done after 4-5 days
Since we lived a block from the hospital, the night before Mark’s blood work, he spent the night with us. That early evening Dennis and I were sitting on the front porch chatting while Mark showered. I heard the screen door open and looked up to see a bare-chested young man standing there in his boxer shorts.
“Is one leg bigger than the other?” he asked.
I swiveled my head and about fell off my chair. His left leg looked like a telephone pole.
Instead of the routine blood work, Mark ended up at the hospital having a battery of tests done. It turned out that he had a large tumor in his left, upper thigh. The mass had put pressure on a vein, which formed a “rather large” blood clot, which caused the swelling. They inserted a filter for the blood clot and started blood thinners. Less than 24-hours later we got the devastating news that the tumor was malignant and the lives of three families changed in an instant.
Cancer is not a death sentence anymore. Many people survive and thrive and live to an old age after a cancer diagnosis. And many don’t. Mark was one of the statistics. In August he was a young man. By Christmas of that year, the family was taking turns spending time with him in the hospital, knowing he wouldn’t make it to the approaching New Year. Just barely after midnight on December 27th, Mark’s mom, his dad, and I sat around him holding his hands until his struggle was over, a month after his 23rd birthday. He fought for four months. The longest months – and the shortest months – of our lives.
Fortunately for us, we had the best support possible. My friend Becky, lost her precious Sarah at the young age of 24 just three years earlier. She and Herlin were amazing. They knew what to do. They knew what to say. They knew what not to say. Immediate family and other close friends were also terrific. I don’t know how people without an emotional support system get through trauma like this by themselves.
But yet, even with all the pain, tears, and grief, there were still a few who didn’t understand. “But he’s not your real son,” I heard more than once. A year later I refused to go to the work Christmas party, because the one year anniversary, marked by a major holiday, was just as painful as if we were experiencing this loss and death for the first time. And there were those few who still didn’t get it. I’d like to be mean and think ‘Wait until it happens to you. Then you’ll understand.’ But I can’t. I couldn’t wish this on anyone.
It was many years before I could find joy in Christmas again. Chris got a tattoo on his arm honoring Mark. After all his years of being the big brother, he finally got a big brother – and then he lost him.
In 2012, a friend went through her files of emails that she’d kept. She painstakingly cut her email address out the copies and returned the emails to her friends. In the stack she gave to me, I found a few emails that I’d sent her in 2004 as we were traveling this rocky path with Mark. It was interesting to see a lot of the details that I’d pushed out of my mind.
On December 22, 2004, I’d updated her on what was happening. I won’t share it all here. But on December 3rd, he’d finished another round of chemo. On December 8th, things took a turn for the worse. Back to the hospital we went. Another surgery. More transfusions. Then to isolation. Then to ICU.
With all this going on, we still had four other children to think of, my two sons and Dennis’ two daughters. They were devastated too, but as parents, you still try to make things ‘normal.’ At the end of the email I closed with:
“We did get a tree Monday afternoon, although it’s still sitting there undecorated. There are packages wrapped, but no holiday decorations other than my string of Christmas cards draped across the wall. It appears to be Christmas, and the calendar pages say that it will be here in three more days…but it just doesn’t seem to be Christmas. Regardless of all the “STUFF” (and you know I really meant another word) that we’re going through over here, we are thinking of you all and wishing you all the best. Thank you for your support over the past few months and we appreciate all those that have kept us in your prayers. It really has helped to have so many shoulders through all this.”
Life does go on, whether we want it to or not. At first, you don’t see how it’s possible. I remember the morning after my brother died at age 35. I remember waking up and seeing the sunshine and thinking, ‘How dare it! How dare the sun continues to shine on a day like today?’ But it does. And we go on. One step in front of the other. And now, it’s been 14 years since Mark’s soul left his earthly body.
Yet all it takes is one song, one television program, a COPS show, an unexpected rerun of Walker: Texas Ranger. I remember the passing gas and bathroom jokes he used to make in typical boyhood fashion. Or I hear a Fleetwood Mac song and remember the day when Mark walked in the house (early 2000-something) so excited about this ‘new’ band he’d just heard…and there I am – sent right back in time to the days before the unthinkable happened.
I lost my son. I didn’t carry him in my belly for nine months. I didn’t watch him learn to toddle around. I wasn’t there for his first day of kindergarten. But he was still my son, my third son that I got the easy way. He stole my heart and will have a piece of it for the rest of my life. Until I see you again one day, (singing along) you ‘bad boy…bad boy…’
Trisha Faye 