What They Don't Tell You About the Third Year After Losing Someone
It’s that time of year again: the month filled with dread and grief and fear and pain. You see, three years ago, the boy we’d spent the better part of a year preparing to adopt, died—one week after he became a Chu, three days before we were flying to England to bring him home. It was sudden and not sudden. He had severe health problems, you see.
But the thing is, he needn’t have died.
And we were so close. So close.
But I can’t talk about all that. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. I still keep his secrets, and his story is not mine to tell.
It’s the time of year I start hearing, “Tiffany, it’s May again. Are you okay?”
And I don’t know what to say.
I can only think, “He would have been 21 this year. Maybe he’d be studying architecture like he dreamed. Maybe he would have finished his novel and I would have helped him publish it. Maybe he’d have been ice skating again. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.”
What they don’t tell you about the third year after loss:
In some ways, it’s harder than the first, maybe even the second.
The first year is still a blur to me. Some things will always remain vivid, but for the most part, my mind has largely blocked out that first year of Ren’s death.
I guess I remember being constantly surrounded by people. My husband got together a circle of family and friends who worked out a plan between themselves so that I would never be alone. They knew that the moment I could, I would find a way to join him.
It hardly mattered in the end. There’s no way to describe the depth of love you have for a child, how my soul intertwined with his, or that mad desperation to keep him safe, or the helplessness of failing to do so.
“A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.”
—Philippe Ariès
Most days I keep busy and get by (maybe it’s why I’m so scared of not being busy). If I stop—if I think about the utter missing-ness of him—well, it feels like clawed fingers are raking the inside of my chest and in a minute my brain might forget to make me breathe because it hurts too much.
Are you still with me, though?
Because I want—I need to talk about him. And this is something people who haven’t lost someone don’t realise yet: that burying the dead in silence doesn’t make them more dead or you more okay; it only makes them fester in the minds of those who love them still.
The kindest thing you can say to me when I’m in the throes of grief is, “I’m sorry you don’t have him anymore. If you’d like, would you tell me more about him?”
And oh, for a child who spent his whole life being silenced, I’ve spent these years trying and trying to make sure he is heard.
It’s why I’m here.
Writing, without hiding behind a pseudonym for the first time in my life.
Before his death, we’d spent time preparing those in our lives for the arrival of a teenage boy with severe mental, emotional, and physical health problems, knowing we would need support even as we supported him. All the things you’re supposed to do for post-adoption and then some, because of the sheer complexity of his case.
Then all of a sudden, there was no one coming home, and the months upon months of preparation, of household changes, of everything, was sucked into a void of blackest grief.
Those we’d involved knew how we loved him, and they encircled us.
Others who had known Ren in his own friend circles reached out to express their grief and how he had touched their lives, even those who’d interacted with him only briefly.
But while the first year could be spent in an abstract form of denial, the second, third year is when it really settles in that this person is gone and will never come back.
It’s the year people move on. And it’s not their fault. It’s not. We can’t all remain in that void forever. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Yet even so, it was when I started to feel stuck in a place I will never be able to move past, lost with wounds only I can still see. It was when I started to realise that though Ren still carried my soul with him, along with all the impact that statement holds, most others will begin to forget him, until he’s only a tiny blip on the landscape of their lives.
For everyone else, it’s been three years. For me, it was only yesterday. For me, it’s the rest of my life.
But he was alive, once.
And I want to tell you about a boy who loved freely and easily. I want to tell you about the outlandish things he would say like, “What is a web, spider poop?”, “We’re complementary, like enzymes,” and “Indeedeth.” The way he would put five lemons in his water and try to force me to try cheese toast with strawberry jam. How he’d spam me with dumb emoji faces until I either laughed or told him to go away.
When we visit his headstone at the cemetery, we bring poke and have a picnic. He loved raw fish; his favourite food was ceviche. Sometimes we won’t say much. Sometimes one of us will say, “Do you remember…?” and we laugh.
You have to laugh, you know.
My husband last time: “Do you remember the time he used me to cheat on his computer science test?”
Ridiculous child, we say.
I want to tell you about a boy who had a gift for bringing people together and making them feel seen. He knew something of being unheard and alone. I’d never met someone so pure, so kind. A miracle of a person, that he could be so, even after all he’d been through. It was impossible not to love him. He drew people to him like moths to a flame.
I want you to know that he existed, once.
Renley Nicolas Chu.
I don’t want to remember him on my own this month.
Will you remember him with me?