Five Years In

My boy Hugh had been “gone” two years when I started writing Never Really Left, four years when I finished writing the book, and five years when it got published. Right after he passed, I dared not wonder what five years in would look like—that was unfathomable to me. I have now met parents whose children passed ten years ago, twenty years ago. What is that like? I have a better idea of what that will look like based on my experience now. I know that I will never, ever, ever not think about him multiple times every day, and I will do absolutely everything I can to stay connected to him. He is still my son.

Even though I have experienced so much healing, a new sense of purpose, the ability to live, love, and laugh, these past five years can sometimes still feel raw, like it all happened yesterday—images, memories, last words, and questions are seared in my mind and part of my DNA now. I’m doing really well overall—I’m healthy, happy, and living a full life, but I surprised myself yesterday with how needy my grief was. I was looking through a lot of photos of Hugh to choose some for this website. I was able to do that without a lot of emotion. I came across one of my favorites—one from when he was in high school—where Hugh was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking relaxed, in the moment, and peaceful as he gazed directly into the camera. I don’t even remember how it came to be that I took that shot. He was wearing the white sweatshirt with a Champion logo on the left chest that he’s always wearing whenever I see him in my mind, or in a vision. That sweatshirt has come to represent him and is very important to me. But where did it actually go? I couldn’t find it among his things after he passed. All of a sudden, I wanted needed it so badly. Of course, I couldn’t ever get the real one back, but I was determined to buy a replica. I searched the internet and was going to be like a dog with a bone until I found one to match. Champion has changed their designs in the five years since, but at last, I found one just like it. What size did Hugh wear? I had forgotten—a medium, a large? I went to his closet to look at the sizing on his other shirts. A medium.

While I was digging around in his closet, I ached for something else, too, which I had foolishly thrown away—the last pair of shoes I’d bought him, just a few months before he passed. When he was in a residential addiction treatment center for young men, he got into skateboarding there, and on one of the weekly phone calls we were allowed, he requested a pair of skateboarding shoes. They have extra grip, durability, and protection for skateboarders. At our local Vans store, I bought and mailed him a pair of their black suede Old Skool Skate shoes with white detailing. When we picked him up from the treatment center, he was wearing them, and I couldn’t believe how he’d beat the crap out of those shoes in just a few weeks. He was so hard on all of his shoes. When I cleaned out his room sometime after his death, I got rid of those because they were so trashed. Months later, I deeply regretted doing that and even scoured the internet for a pair of beat-up shoes just like those, on eBay and other sites, and didn’t find any. Duh, who sells beat-up shoes. So now, five years later, I bought a brand-new pair exactly like them. Thank goodness it’s a Vans classic style that they might just carry forever. What size shoes did Hugh wear? I had forgotten that, too. I looked through his shoes that I did save. Size eleven.

Five years in, I’m going to feel so relieved knowing those things are sitting in his closet once they’re delivered, even though they weren’t his. Funny. Oh well, there’s no rhyme or reason to what the grief journey will look like for anyone. But the biggest thing I’ve learned after all these years and all the searching, digging, free-falling I did as chronicled in the book, is that Hugh never really left. He’s not gone. I do wish I could hug his tall, lanky body and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek as I always did, but barring that, I have now experienced that in many ways, he’s closer to me than he probably ever could have been any other way. He’s still right here, right now.