Living in Four Worlds After Someone Dies

My first-born son, Luca, died at 10 years of age unexpectedly from a “rare” brain bleed. Last night I had another dream about the boy I am missing with every fibre of my being. Not sure if this dream was brought on from the glass of wine I drank before I went to bed, or if it’s because I never stop thinking about Luca. Probably the wine, otherwise I would dream about him every night. This wasn’t the typical nightmare I often had of Luca bleeding and trying to get to the hospital, only to keep getting further away from it and feeling helpless and scared. This was a different dream.

I do not recall all the details of my dream. It didn’t feel like this dream was a ‘visitation’ because he was younger in my dream. In fact, I find in a lot of my dreams he’s younger than 7. Seven was the age he was at the time he was diagnosed with ITP. If these dreams are indeed ‘visitations’ then he’s wanting to go back to a time when he didn’t need to live with ITP.

Parts of the dream played out in the hospital where I worked. However, the hospital resembled more of an apartment building although the rooms were very ‘hospital like’. I remember seeing my previous co-workers throughout the dream. I also remember seeing Luca. I was sitting on a rocking chair, and he was on my lap curled into me. I held him. He was likely about 4 years old. I looked into his eyes. They were exactly as I remember them. I remember kissing his cheeks and holding him close. I remember talking to him, although I don’t remember what I was saying, and I remember hearing him giggle. In my dream, I didn’t remember he had died.

When I woke up, the harsh reality of his death was instantly remembered when I opened my eyes. And the calm, content, happiness I had felt from the dream was washed away. In an instant. I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach, and then the chest pain came back, that comes and goes since Luca died. At the beginning of my grief, it was constant. I guess my body is adapting to the relentless pain.

I once read a quote on Pinterest that said something about how ‘every morning your loved one dies again’ and it is so true. It’s not about being in denial. It’s about feeling like you are living in four worlds. Pinterest will tell you bereaved people feel trapped in two worlds. I disagree. It’s four for sure.

One world is the past, since you loved it there and never wanted it to change but that world shattered the day your loved one died. In an instant it became your past. It takes a long while for your brain to catch up to this fact that your life as you knew it, is now the past. And that past defined you and was integrated into your soul. Therefore, you as you know it are gone too. I was a mom with two loving boys. I was Luca and Matteo’s mom. Luca was my ten-year-old son morphing into a pre-teen. That was my life. My children are the greatest part of me.

The second world is the ‘supernatural’ world where you know you’re loved one is gone, you’ve spent countless hours watching near death experiences on YouTube, and you feel in combination with what religion has taught you that just maybe your loved one’s soul lives on. You don’t want to believe otherwise. So as a result, you find yourself talking to the ghost of your loved one, looking for signs, and feeling like the parts of you that died, are up with your loved one in ‘heaven’ wherever that is.

The third world you live in is your dreams. Where you close your eyes, and you’re immediately transported to somewhere that isn’t real, but you don’t realize that. And when you wake up, you feel like you are in a different ‘realm’ because your dream felt so real, and you never wanted to wake up. But you did, and now the reality of the present in upon you. Again. Shoved into your face.

The forth world is your new reality. Without your loved one. At first, I hated this world. I felt forever trapped in a place I wanted to run away from. And while I love my younger son just as fiercely as I love Luca, nothing felt right. It felt like I was constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it drove me crazy. Some days I wanted to run away. Start all over again. Because doing the same thing you’ve always done comes with a huge price tag – the price of constantly being reminded of Luca’s absence and his unfair death.  Always in your sight. Then, I had another baby, unexpectedly. We had struggled for years to have a third child and gave up, then after Luca died Oliver came into our lives. This new reality also didn’t feel real for a long while and moments I should have enjoyed were tainted by my fierce and very pronounced grief knowing Luca was missing out on all of this. Now if feels like I have two lives. One with Luca and Matteo, and the other with Matteo and Oliver. I feel like we are two distinct families instead of one, and I hate it. I love all my children and hate feeling unattached to my life.

There is no future world. For bereaved parents, you don’t think about your future. You dread it. It’s too much. You don’t want to live long. I find it interesting that I spent my whole life being afraid of dying. And now, I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment to live beyond age 50. I don’t want to watch the world around me go on without Luca. It’s torture every day. And it’s not that I am unable to comprehend goodness. I do appreciate the beauty of earth, my other boys, and I am capable of laughing when something is funny. It’s still hard every day.