I don’t know exactly what to call this feeling. Denial? Avoidance? Maybe. But it feels more like standing in two worlds at once. Like I’m walking with one foot planted firmly in the truth, and the other hovering just above it, afraid to land.
I know Joshua is gone, the way you know a winter freeze is real when you feel it in your bones. I know I belong to this quiet heartbreaking club no one ever signs up for. And still, something in me recoils when I get close to that truth, like touching a hot stove I did not realize was still warm.
There is a strange disconnect that rises up, like fog. Thick enough to blur the edges of everything, but not enough to hide what is standing right in front of me.
I read the stories other bereaved parents write, their journeys, their heartbreaks, and it’s like hearing a familiar melody through a thin wall. I recognize the tune, the ache of it, but the notes do not quite match my own. It resonates but it doesn’t. I understand but I don’t. It brushes against my heart but never lands exactly where my grief lives.
Because I’m the only mother of Joshua.
The only mom who carries the shape of his smile in her chest.
The only mama who knows the exact weight of losing him.
So I stand in this confusing place, right at the edge of a circle I already belong to. It’s like being invited into a gathering around a fire, a fire built from shared loss, and I hover just outside the ring of light. I can feel its warmth. I can hear the quiet murmurs. But stepping fully inside feels like crossing a threshold I’m not sure I’m ready for.
Maybe I tell myself I’m different because it lets me keep some distance. Maybe staying busy, writing alone, doing the work, keeps me standing just far enough away that I don’t have to admit the thing that hurts most:
My story belongs with theirs.
Joshua’s name belongs in those conversations.
There is comfort in that, and there is heartbreak in it too.
Both truths sit side by side, like twin shadows.
Maybe it is a form of denial.
Maybe it is avoidance wrapped in motion.
Or maybe it’s the heart’s instinctive way of pacing itself, like a deer stepping carefully into an open field, not ready to expose its softest parts.
Yesterday I saw an invitation to a bereaved parents’ group. Part of me leaned toward it like a plant toward sunlight. The other part shrank back into the shade, whispering that I don’t quite fit. That I’m not like them. That my grief sits differently, even though I know better.
It’s such a strange tension, wanting to be understood but feeling out of place, wanting community but clinging to the idea that my loss is somehow set apart, knowing I’m not alone but feeling like I am.
Maybe the truth is this:
I am already part of that community, but I’m still learning how to stand there, fully and honestly, without feeling like I am becoming someone I do not recognize. I am still learning how to let my grief be witnessed without feeling consumed by the identity of it.
I do not know if that is denial or avoidance.
I just know it is where I am, walking slowly through the fog, one careful step at a time, toward a fire I am not quite ready to sit beside, but maybe someday will be.
