Loss of a young adult son

[josephsmom90]

I lost a son, a good son, a year ago June 09. Ya it's a year, but it is raw! I have zero support, not even a girl friend to help me. I am in a town that is tiny and I'm new. One child at home and slightly flipping out I guess.

So hoepfully I've posted this correctly. Let me know. Joseph was only 19 and out from under my roof a mere 15 months. He hugged me when he left to live in Wyoming with his dad, his hug said 'it's OK mom. . .' but it wasn't, it wasn't OK!

I don't know how to use this site. Right now is the hardest time I've been through since I lost Joseph. My youngest, is the one who found him, no it was not a suicide. Michael was gone all of last summer, I weathered this alone. Much of it, I do not remember. So now, off he goes for a month with his dad back east to visit that side of the family. I am having a hellish time with it. It's like re living it all over again. . . This is difficult to understand and I've no one to talk to, not even to call! I've no family, friends, and though I've turned to the church, they don't know what to do. I am spiraling, falling, and it is easy to just hole up. There isn't anyone who will find me or even look. I can stay home for a month, who will care? No one.

You know, everyone says they care and I'll be there for you, all of that. Ha, when it gets down to it though, no one, gives a damn! No one has time, and it shows by the ACTIONS! And people don't know what to say to us who are grieving, they don't want to have to say anything, they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to hear about it! THIS SUX!

[Guest]

I am so sorry for the loss of your son!  I give you the saddest of welcomes.  Please join us on Loss of an adult child thread.  It is a more active thread and you will find love, support and understanding from those who have been there, too.

My 28 yr old daughter died on August 9, 2009 from injuries sustained in an ATV accident.  I am almost at the year mark and understand exactly what you're saying.

By the way, I live in Wyoming.

Hope to see you on the adult child site.

Susannah/Stephanie's mom

[josephsmom90]

I don't get it, the 'adult child site' tell me how to go there? Where in Wyoming are you located? All three boys were born in Evanston, well we lived in Evanston but I had them in Salt Lake City. I lived there 15 yrs. Now up in north Idaho with plans of moving down to Ft. Collins Colorado. Thank you for responding to me, I really need support/friendship now.

Elaine

[westleysmom]

Elaine,

I saw your post on Loss of an Adult Child and several people have sent you messages over there.  My 20 year old son Westley died in January and I've been here on Beyond Indigo for a month.  I'm so sorry you are feeling alone.  When you first get on and click on Loss of a Child, then click on Loss of An Adult Child, you just have to look down through the messages.  It's kind of confusing at first I know because I was really turned around too.  Hope you can find it again and join the group over there.

Rhonda Westley's Mom 

[josephsmom90]

Hey, thank you! I will play with that tonight. I can't see everyone who responded to me though, I just don't have it figured out yet.

I did want to say one thing, it's not like I 'feel' I'm alone. I am alone. No family, except Michael who lives with me. He is going away for a month though & that's what has me super upset right now. I am new in this tiny N Idaho town, where if your not married your not real welcome, like I'd want one of thier husbands anyway! LOL ha ha ha... I am going to try & post photos and do a better job of the inital write up about Joseph tonight. He was an achiever, SMART! And he had the gift of writing. If you want you can see a sample of that go to www.brainstorming4us.com  and click on survivor stories, scroll down to Joseph Schmidt and read Fast and Fearless. It's a story he wrote when he was 16 & in Junior College, it will make you cry but it shows his writing gift, he can make you see pictures with his words. To me, that is a what a good writer is able to do.

Elaine

[westleysmom]

"I believe that it is not the length of time that we are put on this earth that is most important but rather what we do with the time that is given to us. Neither I nor my mother allow ourselves to feel anxiety or fear because of our past experiences- we are fast and we are fearless."

Elaine,

What a profound statement!  Your son was a very gifted and wise boy and I can see the day's events in my mind, like you said.  I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that you're not alone but were just feeling alone.  I don't know if its worse to BE alone or FEEL alone, they both suck pretty bad, and either way, you are alone.  I'm so sorry for all that you are going through.  Westley was my baby and now that he's gone, its just me and my husband.  I hate it when he's gone for any length of time and I'm alone.  Other than going and picking out somebody else's husband, (haha) I'm not sure how I'd make it through a whole month all by myself.  I hope that coming to the BI message boards to talk will help you though, as it has helped me.  Some days are better and some are worse, and somehow we have to get through all of them.  This time has been given to us, even though the time given to our sons was not enough.

Rhonda Westley's Mom 

[josephsmom90]

Rhonda,

Thank you for reading his story! That is precious to me! When I found this thread on the page, I read the words in red, and I thought (this is so lame) I thought, didn't Joseph say/write that somewhere? Good grief, that's part of greif fog!!! I'm sure you know what I mean. It can get so bad that I cannot drive, that is dangerous!

Yes I know the feeling of alone when you are not physically alone. Been there done that, and got divorced. Joseph and I went to the same Junior college together. He was 15 when he started, was doing high school at the same time too. He graduated that early 16 yrs & 3 months. Before he was 18 he had all but 8 credits of his AA and was supposed to start at the University of Utah in Fall of 09 to major in journalism. That kid was smart, I mean I had to make him buy a FUN book, told him to go to Amazon and pick it out, he'd been so stressed, so he gets it, I buy it and it comes in the mail. It is a 3'' thick book Teach yourself Latin! GOOD GRAVY! LOL, Latin, fun? Ugh, he did teach himself German though and also in July of 09 supposed to start a job with the International Hotel Group (because he could speak German). . . He'd been in his first apt two weeks! He would have been such a good husband and dad, he had a soft heart that loved God. . .He was my little "Josey bear"

Elaine

[westleysmom]

Oh Elaine, he sounds amazing.  Teach yourself Latin for a summer beach read!  That is too funny.  I really enjoyed his story and just thought those words near the end were so, I don't know, is it prophetic that I'm thinking of?  Like he knew you would need to know that's how he saw you and himself-fast and fearless.  My son Westley wasn't so much of a book-learning kind of guy, but I miss him so much too.  He graduated from high school in 2007 and worked with his Dad as a carpenter.  He tried college (hated it) but at least he tried.  Its not for everybody I guess.  But your Joseph sounds like one of a kind (or did you say he had a twin? Is he doing okay?)  I'm having a slow day at work and just decided to go read his story and I'm glad I did.  

Rhonda Westley's Mom

[josephsmom90]

Rhonda,

Yes he has a twin brother, the other brother that found him. Daniel, is doing OK. 20 yrs old, way wrapped up with his 'friends are my family' thing. He works the oil rigs in Wyoming and makes lots of $ and has a pretty girlfriend. All four of us were extremely close. I home schooled the twins and that made us closer. The story Joseph wrote is my story, that happend to us in 2000. I had seperated from thier dad 9 months before that and we were on the east side of Wyoming where I was attending the U of Wyo. That story is his version of what happened. Oh his dad don't like it, nor do members of his family. He just walked away from us, we were not divorced yet and he never offered to help. I went home with twins 8 yrs and a 5 yr old in a wheel chair for 8 months, on oxicotin, and percoset for 8 months. I also endured surgery after surgery with a brain injury I did not know I had. For seven years I struggled with that, more surgery to put me back together, school, kids, an evil girl friend that they boys dad had and more. . . Joseph was the compliant son, never gave me too much guff. He thought he needed to grow up and be the man. Only I did not recognize it till he was gone. . . That's what brain injury can do to you.

I will write more later on what happend. He went missing June 13 09 for six days at a concert even in south Salt Lake City, Utah. Six days of HELL! By day three... I knew he was gone.

Elaine

[Kelly]

Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.- Facebook and Twitter Integration- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it. - Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible. 

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other. 

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com. 

Kelly Baltzell, MA

CEO/President

Beyond Indigo Family