I haven’t been a very avid blogger recently. Writing and blogging was an outlet for me right after Teagan died. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Some of it I hit the publish button on. I still write and write and write. But I mostly don’t ever publish. Some of its just too personal, most of it’s pretty dang messy and some of it’s going to be published at some future point, just not yet.

Today, I got a message in response to one of my older blog posts and it made me go back. I read the first two blog posts here and part of the third and then I needed to stop. I could feel my chest do the thing. It gets tight and clenchy. My eyes burn with tears and my jaw tenses up until I feel physical pain in my teeth. I can now easily and quickly recognize this response and I instinctively stop. I close my eyes and take a breath. I intentionally stop, close my eyes and take a few more breaths. I relax my jaw and open my mouth. I let my shoulders fall back and down and allow them to relax. A few more deep breaths, sometimes the hot tears fall out of my eyes, sometimes they don’t.

Tonight as I read those first couple of posts I published after Teagan died, I was taken right back. I mean, my brain visits there often. Like really often, but sometimes I just dive right back in and it’s a little too much. Tonight it was a lot. Reading those posts left me feeling all kinds of things, but mostly just the reality. The freaking stupid reality of it all.

On September 26, 2021 I wrote a blog post about how I wasn’t expecting this to be the purpose of this blog when I had decided to write it a few weeks prior. I talked about my pain and shock and confusion. And as I think about that and type it out, my hands are shaking and my breath is short and my eyes are burning with tears.

Breath. Deep breaths. Relax your shoulders. Open your mouth, wiggle your jaw. Deep, slow breaths.

This is my reality. My reality is still real. It’s real. He’s really gone. He really died by suicide. And 2 years, 5 months later, 890 days, I’m still having to walk myself through this process. I probably always will.

But I’m in awe of something…In that same post that I wrote on September 26, just 20 days after Teagan died, 15 days after his funeral, I wrote about two things. Two things, that tonight, make me feel so grateful for and proud of the Amber of September 26, 2021.

First, I said I had HOPE and I had FAITH. When I think back to those days, those weeks, those months….I mostly remember agonizing pain. Fear, guilt, regret. But I had hope and I had faith. I just read it myself. I said it and I must have meant it, because when I read those words tonight I FELT it. Dang, I’m proud of her. I’m grateful for her. Because she is what got me here. I’m grateful she had what she had then. Thank you Amber of September 26, 2021. Thank you. 🤍

And second…that devastated, confused, deeply hurting version of me said that I knew we didn’t talk about mental health enough. That we’re not educated enough as a society and how could we do better if we didn’t know better? I pledged to learn so I could know better to do better. Man, I am crying actual tears of gratitude as I type this. I am so, so grateful for that drive, that desire, that deep sense of wanting to know better to do better in that deeply grieving and hurting version of me. That version of me drove me to do all that I’ve done to this point. To seek, to learn, to pursue education and certification so that I could do just that. To know better so I could do better. All in Teagan’s honor. Because of him and for my 6 other kids, daughter-in-law, my present and future grandkids, nieces and nephews and for all humans who have, who do, or who will struggle.

Tonight I’m reminded of a couple of things. Life is hard. Things happen that we desperately wish didn’t. That we desperately wish we could change or that were different. There’s so much we don’t have control over. But we do have control over one thing, and that is us. How we react, how we show up, and how we choose to handle what we’re given. I will never, ever say I’m grateful for this trial or that I think it “happened for a reason”. I just don’t and I’m just not. But I will forever be grateful for the decision I made to find purpose in my pain. It’s led me to the most fulfilling work I could have imagined possible and it’s been such a gift to myself, my family and my clients.

And you know what? This is only the beginning. I feel like I’m finally crawling out of survival mode and can really do some things now. So much healing to come, growth to be had, things to learn, people to love, purpose to fulfill. So many ways to honor Teagan, serve the suffering, uplift, help, breath hope and life into people. So much. Just so much.

There’s still pain. There’s still so much deep pain. I believe there always will be…because that’s love.

“The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.”
-Russell M Nelsen

And after all this reminiscing, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite quotes.