Unexpected Moments - Tsunamis for Our Hearts

I have touched on this before, but since it never ceases to surprise me, I wanted to write
about it again. Those darn surprise “moments”, when you are feeling pretty involved in
what’s going on, at peace, actually happy and enjoying yourself and then – whammo!!!
-you see or hear something and your heart leaps out of your chest and your throat feels
tight, and you remember your loved one was once here and now is gone.

 It is nearing on three years for me that Erik has been gone, and it still happens to me at the most
unexpected times and more importantly, for the most bizarre and unanticipated reasons.
This weekend, I was spending a wonderful evening with someone, had a great dinner,
and proceeded to go to the theatre, to see the movie, “Lincoln”. For some reason, I
had read or heard that the assassination was depicted and that it was startling, and was
nervous that it would upset me. As it turned out, it is not shown at all, it is revealed in a
different way, so the movie was fine and while very intense for other reasons, definitely
something I was so glad to see for many reasons.

However, as we all know, there are about 10 minutes of trailers shown before a movie,
and most of us walk in not having any idea of what the trailers will preview or depict.
So, as I watched the previews for upcoming movies, I was feeling very impressed
that there seemed to be an onslaught of very worthwhile and intriguing movies being
premiered in the near and distant future, and was sitting in the dark theatre in a totally
contented and optimistic mood, very happy.

Suddenly, on the screen, there was a vision of a father playing with his two young sons
on the beach, and the mother playing with a third son some distance away. As I was
watching the idyllic scene, I became aware that this was going to be a scene from a new
movie about a family’s experience in the tsunami that occurred in eastern Asia a number
of years ago.

So, before I could process this information and gather my wits about me, on the huge
screen with all of Hollywood’s realistic special effects, I watched this father’s face morph
from joy to horror, as he realizes something he cannot understand is happening, and
literally has his two precious young sons wrenched out of his arms, unable to hold onto
to them due to the force of the water. At the same time, the mother and other son who
managed to stay together, disappeared from his view. Then on the screen, there were
flashes of the family in dire life-threatening moments of thrashing water and attempting
to cling to objects or each other. I felt like someone was ripping my heart out.

I’m not sure how long this was on the screen…only several minutes I am sure. By the
end, I was in tears. I got to see the father find both of the boys again, and there is a line
where he tells him that his worst moment was the few seconds he felt he may not see
them again. For me, a knife in the heart, knife in the heart.

The trailer leaves you with the information that the movie is a true story of one family’s
experience in the tsunami, so you know that those boys you just saw on the screen did
survive, so that was something I guess.

Meanwhile, I am left with that phenomenon of - I am a mother who could not save her son,
and he was torn away from me, for very bad reasons.

It is such a heartache: remembering those times when he was happy and exuberant, full
of life, and belonged to me; when he was tired, and would crawl up on my lap at the end
of the day and snuggle; when he was older and still able to show affection or come to me for help; when he was in high school and literally “on top of his game”, as starter of his high school basketball
team.

And then, little by little, I could no longer hang on to him, help him, save him. Erik’s
departure was less sudden than a tsunami, as his mental health deteriorated and he very
gradually disappeared from the person I knew into his own torturous world of feeling
alone and like a failure.

Yet, that last moment, that message that I had not been able to keep him in my arms, and
that it would never happen again, was a tsunami for my heart. All the emotions on that
father’s face in that split second when his sons are torn from him, the horror, the fear, the
disbelief, I felt that moment in my kitchen when that nice police detective quietly told me
my son was gone.

No one will make a movie of me, I am sure. For one thing, I am sadly aware that there
are so many other parents who have had to live through this, I am not unique. Also, I
am not a hero who saved my son. These are the tragedies that befall us in a quiet way,
sometimes behind closed doors, that we are expected to move forward from and then
continue on with our lives, which we all do.

 And while we are able to move forward and survive, and we are able to embrace joy and happiness again, there will always be, without warning, those darn “moments”. When we least expect them. Tsunami’s for our hearts.