A Life Reset

The year 2008 will always be a dark year for us. What ever happens to us as a family in the future, we will always look back to this year as when lost one of our own.

Nicholas’s death has changed all of us in so many ways. When you react to the loss of a child, you can do so in several ways. You can rage against it for the rest of your life, you could try to forget that it ever happened or you can lapse into a sense of passivity, that no matter what you do, fate is always conspiring against you so why even bother doing anything. So things are never taken care of and end up falling behind on them.

For us, it has been one of those reactions at some point or another since April. There are times when we think we have accepted and mentally moved on but we find out soon enough that we never really did. In many ways, it is like taking two steps forward and then two back.

You would think that time would be the ultimate salve for us. It has been 8 months since that day yet the events of that terrible day remain fresh in our memories, seared in a way that few things ever have in our lifetimes. We are not allowed to forget what happened to us though not that we should ever forget it. But we are not allowed to forget the pain either. It is like a video stuck on an never ending loop. We keep replaying the same scenes over in our mind with the same intensity of feelings as they were on that day.

All in all, it has been endlessly draining on us emotionally, mentally and physically. I think that the ailments that afflict me now are no doubt related to the stress of that day and the aftermath. We either sleep a lot or hardly ever at all; the result is the same. We always feel tired.

At some point, though, we have to stop being afraid. Stop being afraid of this happening to us again. Stop being afraid of the future. It will not be all doom and gloom. There are happier moments ahead of us, moments that will allow us to heal just a little bit more.

We have had many happy moments during this year. My parents’ lengthy visit this spring was a balm for us. In times like these, it is good to have family around.

As always, Madeleine proved to be a continual source of joy for us. Her love of life and being just a child has given us much happiness.

We did a lot of neat things as a family: our mountain trip this autumn was great as we saw more of the Blue Ridge mountains than we ever did before. We went to our first Christmas parade as a family. So many good things did happen for us when we start thinking about it.

Yet, there was a measure of Triumph this year. The election of Barack Obama as President signals a change for the future and a clean break from the policies of the past eight years. This year, I found myself as heavily engaged in the election process as I have never been before. From the beginning of the primary season to the election night, I constantly monitored the ebbs and flows of the campaign. I also kept a keen eye on the other races for Senate, Congress and the state governor. In the end, it all turned out as well as I could expect it to be.

Now with a troubled economy at hand and oversea conflicts unresolved, we need a leader that who will be engaged in the running the affairs of the nation unlike the current president who seems to have checked out on his responsibilities for the past six months or so. Obama’s election represent the triumph of hope over fear. What he does with his mandate remains to be seen especially considering the enormity of the tasks ahead of him but knowing what he has put into place already with his transition teams, we all have confidence that the right decisions will be made and hopefully by this time next year, things will be starting to get better.

For 2009, I hope for a better year for us as we have been hurt immensely this past year. I have guarded confidence that things will be looking up for us in many ways for us.

Know Hope.