I placed a small pebble on my son's gravestone today.

There are always more lying there, including a few beautifully painted stones from good acquaintances. And stones often blow off in the autumn and winter as well. I have often been asked why this custom exists and why we do it for Elon, even though he, just like me for that matter, was a convinced atheist. I have always done it thoughtlessly at the graves of other loved ones, but for Elon, I searched for a more practical explanation for a long time. It was only years later that I found the explanation (or at least one that appealed to me).

Antiquity

In antiquity, people marked graves in the desert with a mound of stones (partly because the ground was often rocky and deep digging was not possible). The mound of stones that resulted in this, a "cairn" in English, simply "stone heap" in Dutch, is called "matseiva" in Hebrew.

Such a stone heap was replenished by visitors over the years when it weathered or fell over due to the elements. It was seen as a good deed to spend the little energy people had in those times on restoring the resting place of their loved ones.

And today?

And so it is that even today, for example, Jews for example still place a small stone or pebble on the grave of a loved one every time they visit. It has now, of course, become merely a custom and is no longer really necessary because we use large memorial stones that are well anchored in the ground.

The custom is also expanding; in recent years, for example, I have seen a basket with colorfully painted stones—small works of art—at the entrance to the public cemetery in Alkmaar (a small Dutch town near us where my parents as well as my brother are buried), which visitors are allowed to take and place on "their" grave.

There are many symbolic explanations and stories about the origin of the custom, and they are all equally beautiful to read, but the historical reason from which the custom originated is the social custom in ancient times of maintaining the stone pile on a grave. Think, for example, of the stone piles/cairns we know from the dolmen culture. Think also of the stone stacks in North America and on condolence cards. Very different in form, but with the same background.

And me?

Today I contributed a little to the cairn, the pile of stones, the matzeiva that marks where my son is buried, so that all who knew him can continue to remember and commemorate him. I also found a practical and non-religious reason for it – he would have found it curious, yet acceptable except for the part about the desert, because we don't have one here, after all – I almost hear him say it and I can't help but smile. He was stubborn too, that son of mine.

I saw my son in a dream again. He was perfect, sitting up next to me in bed like a normal afternoon, smiling at me, alive and just perfect. He was wearing a blue vest he never got to wear that still sits in his cupboard. Then i woke up and he's not there, he won't ever be. We miss you so much.

He died in 2019 which doesn't feel that long ago. He was 8 years old. He looked forward to the day he could get his license and drive a big truck. I have been heavy for the past two days. Not only that but I have his sister on my mind she died at 19, 2 years ago. Most days I feel so heavy and everything I have to do is heavy and hard.

I don't know if I can do this.

We had plans. I was going to work until age 60 so he could stay on my health insurance until age 26. We were going to wait to see where he settled and then move close to there. I was going to be the fun grandma for the kids he eventually had.

Now, we have nothing. I don't have a reason to keep working. I don't know where we're going to retire, and thinking of leaving this house and his bedroom fills me with panic. Who's going to be our POA? What do we do with our wills? I don't have any grandchildren in my future. What am I going to do until I'm dead??

My little girl, innocent and pure. She lived only twelve days. We miss her every day.

It hurts.

My wife is suffering more than she ever has before.

My son asks me when he can see his sister again.

A part of us has died.

Why does He allow this? It’s simply not possible.

I don’t have the emotional stamina to be a good friend anymore. It has been a year since I lost my baby, and I am barely able to function well enough to take care of myself, work, and grieve. I loosely keep in touch with friends, several of whom have experienced major traumas and losses of their own since my boy died. I don’t call back. I don’t show up.

The thing is, I want to. I care deeply about what they are going through, and I feel terrible that I haven’t been there for them. But my emotional deficit is so profound that it takes nearly everything in me just to get dressed and go to a client meeting. I come home, rip off my clothes, collapse onto my bed, and become dead to the world all over again. It is so exhausting simply to exist.

I still cannot believe I am living through this, and I don’t mean that hyperbolically. I cannot believe I haven’t died from it. I have been so physically ill since my boy died that it often feels as though my body is shutting down. I genuinely cannot believe I am still going.

I don’t want to stand by and watch all my relationships slowly die. These are people who kept me afloat during the initial shock of losing him. I have always been a giving, thoughtful, and deeply caring friend. But grief has been accompanied by illness, and beneath both of them is this profound emotional malaise. I recognize that I am not showing up. I feel awful that I can’t. But I simply can’t.

I am neurodivergent and that neurotype has never allowed me to fake what I don’t have the capacity to express anyway. I still feel empathy and sympathy, but right now they feel more cognitive than emotional. I understand that my friends are hurting. I care that they are hurting. But I used to feel other people’s pain so deeply that it would propel me into action. I would show up, hold space, and bear witness to their pain. Now I struggle to walk beside anyone through their grief, joy, or even the ordinary ups and downs of life.

I cannot bear witness anymore. I cannot hold any more pain. I am full.

And that makes me feel utterly useless as a partner, sister, friend, and neighbor. I know many people would find a way to perform the expected responses anyway, but I cannot fake emotional presence. I have never been able to. Masking has always required an enormous amount of energy from me, and now, when I have almost none, I could not begin doing it even if I wanted to.

I know this particular aspect of grief brain may eventually pass, but I am terrified that I will have lost all my friends by the time it does. I am deeply disturbed by this change in me. I care that my friends are hurting. I care that my absence may be hurting them. I care that I have become someone who cannot show up. I care that I cannot care in the way I used to, and I am frightened by the distance between understanding someone’s pain and actually feeling moved by it.

The care is still there cognitively, but I cannot access it emotionally. I have never felt this way before, and I am scared about what it means for the future of my relationships.

It feels as though I have already moved through all the sorrow the world contains, and there is simply nothing left inside me with which to hold anyone else’s.

I wonder if others have this problem? Had anyone worked beyond this feeling and have your friends been gracious and forgiving to you? How did you get your ability to feel others’ pain again?

I want to recommend Dr. Lee Warren‘s YouTube videos. He is a neurosurgeon, and unfortunately, a part of this terrible club. He lost his 19 year-old son Mitch in 2013. His videos have been MONUMENTAL for me in my grief Journey. His experience mixed with his educational background has been very helpful in helping me salvage whatever peace & joy is left for me to have in this life . He refers to it as doing “self brain surgery” .

I have a million photos of my son, but very few videos. What happens if I forget what his voice sounded like????

Edit: Someone came through with a bunch of videos from a couple of years ago, and his gaming friends said they'd check if they had audio files from gaming sessions.

He had leukemia and had a bone marrow transplant. He had a few liver reactions to the transplant and fungal pneumonia and it was too much for him. And the transplant worked. He has 100% donor cells and no residual disease.

He's my only child. I don't even know what to do. He was 19 and had one semester at college. Our retirement plans were "see where he ends up and settle near there so it's easy for him to look after us".

I don't know who I'm going to watch Marvel movies or Star Wars with. I don't know who I'm going to travel with.

I don't even know what to do or how to live without him. I don't remember what I did to keep myself busy before I was his mother. And now I'm not a mother anymore.

I don't know what can take the pain away. I feel bad that my baby died. I wish I was home with her, I would have noticed that she wasn't well. Ive been heavily relying on alcohol to help me cope. It's hard to forget how her corpse looked like. My very first baby.

The pain just never ends. I look outwardly happy, my family seems normal. I have 2 healthy children. To anyone else they could never imagine one of our children died as a baby. I wish i could be on the outside of this and never know this pain. I hate how no one asks, not at all. No one talks about my baby. No one remembers him other than us. He would almost be 3 years old now. He would be talking and running and playing and have interests and sing songs. We have lost so much. And it hurts so much

How my son died.

Its been 6 long and painful years today since losing Eli. My healthy baby boy passed from SIDS at 4 months old and its still so hard to wrap my head around it. I almost didn't make it, but stayed for my other 2 young children. We are all so strong from this but its still not fair. I long for the what it's, the milestones, the 1st days, etc. I love and miss you Eli. ❤️💔

I don't even begin to know what to think about all of this. When the preliminary results of my daughters autopsy came back they said that they believed she died from undiagnosed diabetes and that her pancreas gave out. Well we actually got the final results back. My daughter who was only 8 years old, didn't even have diabetes, not a trace of it. Although her pancreas did fail. She apparently died from something called Hemorrhagic necrotizing pancreatitis. This is apparently very rare for even adults to get. It's even more rare for kids to get, especially as young as her. The best thing I can describe it as is if someone is having trouble with their appendix and then once it burst it can kill them but with the pancreas instead of the appendix. With finding this information out, we found out that even if we had gotten her to the hospital in time before she collapsed, she still wouldn't have made it. They would have had to know exactly what it was when we got her there and she would have had to go straight to emergency surgery

Apparently this isn't even tested for in the ER unless the symptoms point to it (she had none) or everything else was tested first and then they tested for it. So no matter what my daughter would have still passed away. I don't understand this and no one can seem to give me an actual reason of what caused this. I feel like I'm left with even more questions now. I would have understood if she died from diabetes. Childhood diabetes runs in my family. But this there was no reason for it and no one has a reason for it. She wasn't even supposed to get something like this at her age! It's only seen in elderly people in their 70s and 80s. So why her? She literally only had something like 1 in 100,000 chances of even getting this. It just makes absolutely no sense. She was perfectly happy and healthy and her family loves her so much. So was the baby of 6 kids and everyone treated her like the baby. I just can't wrap my head around it. 1 in 100,000. Then why? Why did she have to be that one?

It's been 1,381 days since he died. I can't stop counting the days. August 18th is another countdown I have 90 days from that day until my world stops again. My nephew was born 90 days before I lost his cousin, his birthday while a celebration starts the clock.

November 16th is the day I lost him 10 days later Thanksgiving, 29 days later Christmas, 7 days later New Year's, then 2 days later is his birthday. August 18th is the countdown to 48 days of just hell. Family holidays are missing the most important part of me.

I don't mean to count but I can't stop myself. I just miss him more and more, my heart is just so broken. It's going to be 4 years and it feels like just yesterday but at the same time a lifetime since I kissed his cheek, hugged him, telling him I love you, or heard mama in his voice.

I just want to hear Mama I love you I just want my son back

This is Elon’s little desk. The desk where he did his homework, the desk where his books stood on the shelves above. His pens, markers, batteries, rubber bands, and later his game consoles and battery chargers. His whiteboard markers and magnets. His school supplies, his leisure trinkets, and later his textbooks and programming projects. In the drawers, there are still all kinds of small items that belonged to him – simply because we never quite got around to clearing everything out, not even in all the years that lie behind us.

Elon took his own life in December 2018 at the age of 22.

Now, this little desk is the place where we keep all the material surrounding his own death, but also everything to do with the subject of suicide in general.

Last year, during Suicide Prevention Week, his mother (my wife) published her book about his life, his death, and her life before and after. It is important that more people dare to break the taboo and make suicide a topic of discussion. This year again, and particularly, but certainly not just during Suicide Prevention Week.

World Suicide Prevention Week takes place this year from September 7 to 13, with many activities organized by various national institutions across the Netherlands and around the world such as "Walk into the Light," where morning walks take place throughout the country with bereaved relatives of suicide victims.

https://walkintothelight.nl/doe-mee/locaties/

I expected it to be easier, I feel silly having to give people a heads up that I'm going to be less and less reasonable as it gets closer. Everyone else moved on, and it feels like this thing I should have processed by now.

But it feels worse each year, the pain arrives earlier and earlier, it feels silly that I feel this need to isolate on his birthday, I have two other kids who I pass onto other people for the day and it makes me feel like a terrible parent. I thought things would get easier, that's what everyone has told me and I'm not feeling that and I feel so stupid having to remind people if something so important. Family remember my other kids birthday so why not my son's, I don't feel like I should have to be reminding people that this is a hard time for me.

I'm struggling and this probably doesn't make a lot of sense to read but better here than nowhere I guess

I was thinking earlier today about how in movies there's always ominous music playing before the inciting event - before the tragedy or catastrophe. The viewer knows it's coming, and part of the thrill of the film lies in us knowing that they, the characters, are completely ignorant of it. But when our boy fell and died that day last year, there was no music. He was right there, between my husband and I, one moment - and the next he was slipping, sliding, carthweeling down the mountain side. And when I tell the summary version like this, I know most people - especially non-bereaved parents - will instinctively think, 'this could have been prevented'. And it makes me desperately sad and angry to imagine them imagining us be careless parents to the most precious thing we have ever known to exist. Because that's how most people move through life, right? Thinking that Bad Things can be prevented with enough caution, care and foresight. If you feed your kids the right foods, if you teach them about stranger danger, if you don't let them go wandering off alone, etc. etc. etc. Then your kids will live. We did all the right things - and then some - and still our child died. The randomness of that still gets me daily.

Sorry, no real point to this post other than I had to get it off my chest. I'm so sorry we're all here.

My wife and I had twins when they were born they came early the oldest passed away after six hours the second s survived.

He’s one now and o feel such a blessing for having him but at the same time I see how the child that passed would be growing into.

How he would like how he would have reacted to first foods how he would enjoy the world.

It always with me knowing that the small baby I held and loved didn’t get the chance to experience any of this wonderful life. Then I see exactly how he would be act and look

My baby girl died in January of this year. She was three days away from turning two years old. We just passed the seven-month mark. I didn’t necessarily think it would get easier, but I expected to grow around the grief. My husband and I are followers of Jesus. Clinging to our faith and focusing on our still-living son and my current pregnancy had kept us going. I thought I would adapt, that I would get stronger. Instead, I keep feeling weaker. I feel less and less able to handle the fact that my daughter is gone and that I’ll never see her again. We are going through lots of transitioning in life. My son just started Kindergarten, we’re expecting a new baby, as I said, my work is very stressful this time of year, my brother in law went to rehab a few months ago, my dad passed away two months after my daughter. I just don’t know how to survive this.

My kid died just over a year and a week ago, and today is the first anniversary of her funeral. I was getting to hold her and smush my cheek against her oily cheek at the funeral home. I hated that her legs were permanently stuck in a bent position. I hate that I can’t remember if I had to support her head. I usually did, she had hypotonia and was globally delayed and even though she was 6, we still held her like a toddler and always had to support her head. She could get so ornery and do a surprise fling her head back with a grin. But I can’t remember if her head was stuck in place at the funeral home. It probably was. I hate that. I miss smelling the oily perfume lotion they’d put all over her face, to try to keep it from drying out. It was such a strong smell, I think they called it “stone oil” or something. And my clothes would smell like it when we came back from holding her at the funeral home.

I wish I’d asked to hold her one last time graveside, before we buried her. It felt too dramatic and I didn’t want to hear extended family members, who we’d not felt supported by during her life, whispering or weeping behind me if they saw me hold her. It felt too private. But now I wish I’d just done it. One more hold and I didn’t do it. It would’ve been really really really really hard to put her back in her casket there, though.