The forced journey

The moment your child breathed his last breath on this earth, you embarked on a trip you were not prepared for. You were not given time to pack in advance, you were not allowed to pore over brochures to give you an idea of your destination, you couldn’t book a hotel room and worst of all, you were not given the chance to say good-bye.

One day you were at home living your life, the next, you and your family were ushered into the “Grief Hotel” without a suitcase, much less a reservation.

Your legs could barely hold you as you stood in the lobby in bewilderment. You swayed when the receptionist at the front desk handed each of your family members a key. You were given none until all eyes locked on you. Your heart began to pump harder, faster, louder, when one by one, all of them, the people that you love, thrust the keys at you and turned their backs on you. The words engraved upon the keys’ smooth surface, fuzzy at first, marched before your burning eyes in a procession of horror: “Room reserved for the Guilty.” The receptionist smirked as she called a bellboy to escort you to the Guilty room. You were pushed inside and heard the clanging sound of the keys turning in the lock. You pounded on the door until your fingers bled, but no one heard you, and if they did, they ignored you.

You didn’t know what to do with yourself and seeing there was no way out of the room, you decided to turn the television on. You tried to blink the images away, but it was too late. Your blood turned to ice and sweat began to pour down your back when you saw yourself with your child that fateful day. Everything was clear, transparent, mocking, as the large screen taunted you with every detail you desperately wanted to erase from your brain. A cackle reached your ears. “Did you really think you could forget? You will never forget!”

You grabbed the remote and tried to punch a button, any button. All you wanted was to stop, stop that horror movie from playing. Your hands were numb; all your attempts to shut the television useless.  The cackles morphed into your baby’s sweet voice until all you heard was, “Guilty, guilty, guilty…”

Air. You needed air. You ran to the window and flung it open. Your stomach dropped to the floor when you saw them.

Faces, many of them, all of them bearing masks of hate, pointing their fingers at you, chanting, “There she/he is! Guilty. Monster. You should be in prison!”

You couldn’t stand anymore. You covered your face with your hands and slumped against the cold wall. Wild shrieks tore from your throat, bruising it until you were convinced you were going to choke to death. Good. Then maybe, just maybe, you would find peace. But even death refused to whisk you away. Everything and everyone conspired against you. They wanted to make sure you would never forget.

The Grief Room is where you replay the last moments before your child’s death over and over in the movie screen of your mind. You wish you could replace some of your actions that day, change what you did, how you did it, what you said and how you said it. You are tortured by what ifs and long to rewrite the script of your life and how you lived it on that last day. If you were not with your child those last moments, you try to bend reality and pretend you could have done something, that your presence could have changed things, if only you had been there.

You share your thoughts with close friends and family members who haven’t written you off and just when you think you have found a little respite, the fragile bud of hope blooming in the barren garden of your soul is yanked by the whispers, the indirect accusations and veiled threats aimed at you. They are everywhere, they won’t let you go. Solace is too much to ask for. You don’t deserve it. Upon closing your eyes, your own baby’s voice rings around you and drapes you in a shroud of regret.

Grief will grip you and wrestle with you. You will tumble and fall and slump and sink and cave and bow. Your own grief is enough to deal with, but when others’ mourning attacks you, you need to act. Guilt is a relentless, merciless warden, and if you give him the keys to your soul, he will keep you in that room for the rest of your life.

You have become a prisoner, but you don’t have to remain that way. The Guilt Room is not meant for a lifetime, though many have made the mistake of turning it into their permanent residence and have even moved their belongings there.

But it doesn’t have to be you. Refuse to stay locked within those walls. Make up your mind you are there to pass, not to stay. Be aggressive and get ready to exit that place of darkness.

Ask God to bring you clarity of mind and heart. Oftentimes your guilt builds dangerous fantasies and scenarios that are far removed from reality. As your mind begins to heal, you will realize most people are not against you and those that are are so grief-stricken they are lashing out at you because their heart is scarred. They need to blame someone, and whether you were with the child or not when he/she died is irrelevant. It is a defense mechanism they activate for their own self-preservation. If they allow themselves to entertain the frightening thought, even for mere seconds, that this could happen to them, they would go insane. It has nothing to do with you, it is about them, their pain, and the way they choose to cope is through anger and blame. That doesn’t make it right, but it frees you from the grip of unfounded guilt. Do not sink down to their level. Rise above it and begin to rebuild your life. Your baby is watching; make him/her proud.