Day 87

Today has been rough. This afternoon I stopped by the funeral home to pick up the death certificates. We ordered several as a precaution since we weren’t sure how many originals we will be asked to hand over to various institutions and agencies.

I hadn’t been to the funeral home since the week after the visitation service when Dawn and I went there to pick up Damian’s ashes. Lots of memories came flooding in from our time there planning his funeral, attending the visitation and the cremation, but what really hit me hard was the death certificate. Our mortician, Bradley, asked me to review the details to make sure all the information was correct. And there it all was: Damian’s full name, his social security number, our address, his birth date, the date of his death, the cause of his death, how we disposed of his body. A life that once was now encapsulated on a single 8 x 11 form. The last official record of my son’s all-too-brief existence. 

I hadn’t had such a vivid reminder in quite some time that Damian is gone and never coming back. I felt the emotions well up in me as I walked back to my car. I sat in the parking lot for a couple of minutes to ride out the wave of grief waiting for it to get a lot worse. It never really did though; just kind of stayed at a constant, painful, but not excruciating, level.  I credit the anti-depressant I’ve been taking for keeping me out of the abyss. 

I’m still riding the same wave of grief even now several hours later. No big changes up or down which is ok. I’m sure that a good night of sleep will help but it’s going to be another 3 hours or more before I will be able to turn out the light and say goodbye to this day. All I can do in the meantime is bob around on this sea of grief and the let the currents take me where they will. What other choice do I have?