Lost and Found

Holding On Through Parenthood, Loss, and Love

When you have a typical existence and really don’t know how to navigate as an adult yet, and you start having kids, life is crazy.

I’m 47, yes, my real age.  And I met and married my husband when I was barely in my twenties.  We had our daughter a little more than a year after we met. And to say I had no idea what I was in for is an understatement. All parents know this to be true.  Read all the books, and watch all the videos, but there is no training like on the job training. 

We got through it, and when both kiddos were older, around upper elementary and middle school ages, my husband and I reflected on how much easier it was than the baby stage. Before we had kids, we were just starting to learn about each other. Before our babies, we did a lot of hanging out with our friends. We had the same friend group.. long story.  We shopped at the local malls, and I was infatuated with him. He was a real adult. He always knew his bank account balance and got up in the early early mornings for work. While I made money in restaurants, I always just had cash, and I worked nights. If I ever had to work a lunch shift, I still only went to work at 10:00am. 

After the kiddos were in high school, we reflected on how much we had lived through together, all the dramas, all the bad choices, and forgiveness, holidays, family gatherings, and our family vacations. We have almost lost it all, and we have been fortunate enough to be strong enough to find our way back to each other.  Everything we did, he always knew what to do and how to get it done. Camping?  We never camped a day in our lives in my family. Home improvements?  I was always tagging along learning and asking way too many questions.  

We have both lost a parent. I have lost both of mine, and a bio-dad, that I did not grow up with.  There have been many many times over the course of the last 27 years, that we lost each other.  We have always made it back to each other though. When we put each other through the depts of torture, and everything else that comes your way when you are married, and raising kids.  We always make it back to each other.  We will continue to find the good in our moments. Even if its just a funny thing. Or laughing at our animals.  We have lost our son. We have lost a portion of our True North. But we will continue to find each other in each day. We have to. We don’t know any other way, and there is no one else out there that could handle this with me.  We are never alone as long as we hold each other in our foremost thoughts and actions. 

We will probably always feel lost in a world that holds no safe space for parents who have lost their children.  All the while, finding the next steps in this journey together.

Thanx for being here.                                                                                                                Thanx for reading. XOXO                                                                                                                                                       BRI

PS.

There are moments in a life lived together when the map you trusted disappears, not all at once, but in tiny, shuddering pieces: a parent dying, a routine upended, the compass you called True North stolen by grief. This piece is one of those maps, messy, honest, and stubbornly human. It traces how two people who met young learned to parent, to lose, to fail, and to return to one another again and again, even after a losses that rearranged everything too many times.

Read this at the top of the page as an invitation: to sit with the ordinary and the unbearable at the same time, to notice the small, ridiculous moments of laughter that still thread through the days, and to recognize the work of finding each other again as its own kind of devotion. Read it at the end as a benediction: a reminder that coming back to one another is a practice, and that staying present, however imperfectly, keeps us from drifting apart entirely.

If this lands with you, whether because you know the ache of loss, use this as your own True North.  The slow rebuilding of marriage, or the peculiar loneliness of parents who have nowhere safe to stand please know this: you are seen. You are not the only person carrying that complicated map. If you want to stay connected to stories like this, to hold and be held by a quiet community, subscribe at MySecondHalfSelf.com, leave a note below, or share this with someone who needs to know they’re not alone.

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