My son Kevin passed a year ago, 51/2 years after my wife of 52 years died. I joined David Kessler's grief groups on line and found great support. Then took his Grief Educator seminar. One of the great takeaways from Kessler was to get curious about the intense feelings we feel to see if they remind us of other times. For me some, old wounds have shown up. I've named them and looked at whether I still needed them. It’s been freeing. Grief''s a catalyst sometimes for lightening our load.
In the past grief’s shroud has sent me to very dark places or into disassociation, a kind of mental detachment from life and my closest relationships.
On the day I answered the phone to hear 'Are you the father of Kevin Clarke' I filled in the words before the County Medical Examiner said them. 25 years before my wife and I often dreaded answering phone calls worrying we'd hear the same message...'your son was found dead.’
Kevin, in those days, had several years on the streets of Santa Cruz addicted to opiates. After several ‘bottom outs’ and brief walkaways from treatment he succeeded, in sobriety. He had 20 years of sobriety, speaking, sponsoring and saving lives, before he went out again. Pandemic isolation, a lost marriage, loosing his woodworking business, and severe orthopedic pain plus surgery, took a heavy toll. Fentanyl killed him.
Since then, I’ve disappeared into dissociation and darkness a number of times. As I got ‘Got curious ’I decided to include the repressed grief of 4 family deaths in my first 18 years, along with Kevin and my wife’s. Not like I was taking them all on at once!
For example, recently, an image emerged while in a desperate fear of being alone as I withdrew from my partner, Kate. After bringing curiosity to the overwhelming terror of loss, an image showed up of a boy sitting on a step, confused, engulfed in the identical fear. He was me, at 6, after my younger brother’s death, not understanding death and why I couldn’t be with my mom who stayed behind a closed door for weeks.
I’m now a parent of a dead son, and get the pain behind the closed door.
I’m sorry mom.
by Rich Clarke
Holy Lament member
Image: painted by my son, Kevin Clarke, who passed 8/23/23.
