Let me start at the beginning of the journey. Some of you may have read this before, you can skip to to where the journey is taking me now. My journey start Friday, July 15, 2011 at 1:15Vegas time. I had gone to Vegas with Stuart, Kyle and Heather for a dance competition. We had brought Sam, a friend of Heather's, that was also in the competition. We had been there for a few day was at the last award ceremony then we were to start the road trip home. First phone call was from my mom, which I didn't answer thinking she was calling to check how Heather was doing in the competition. Next two phone call are with in a minute of the first one from my mom again one from my sister. Now I know something is wrong, I leave the award ceremony to check my messages. First from mom " CALL ME!" As I am starting to listen to the next message my brother in law calls me. I answer it "hello. what's going on?"
Randy: "you need to call your mom it looks like Bryan has od'd. Me "what?!?" Randy: "Trish, call your mom now Bryan overdosed." My head starts spinning nothing is really making sense. The dots aren't connecting.
I hang up dial Mom's number. Me: hello
Police officer: this is officer x from the Layton city police.
Me.: I need to talk to my mom. (Dots still not connecting)
Officer: Is this Trish? Bryan's mom.
Me yes I need to talk to my mom. How do you know?
Officer your mom is too upset to talk. Mrs Booth Bryan has apparently overdosed he is unconscious and not breathing (i didnt hear that part)Paramedics are working on him now and have been working on him for awhile.
Me did they give him narcan?
Officer they are doing everything (dots not connecting).
Me I will be there as soon as I can I am in Vegas.
I go into the award ceremony tell Stuart we have to go NOW! As we are getting the kids I am trying to tell Stuart what's happening. We get to the hallway and he starts asking me questions I don't have answers for. Dots are starting to connect but not completely I have him call moms phone. He speaks to the officer for a few minutes. Stuart asks me how I want to get to Utah fly or should we start driving. I chose fly. He drives me to the Vegas airport and drops me off. I go in stand in line in the shortest line I see. They can't get me there and won't tell me what airline can get me there but say southwest flies to salt lake. I go to southwest s line the longest line there is. They put me on standby for flight leaving in 20 minutes. They tell me to hurry they will try to hold the plane for me. I make through security and yes of course I was the chosen one that got frisked. As I get to the gate the gate agent calls my name. I am on the flight.
Next call to moms cell phone. 3:15
Me: hello
Moms bishop hello
Me: can I talk to my mom
Bishop: she's pretty upset I am taking calls for her
Me: this is Trish Bryan's mom. Can you tell my mom I am on my way my flight is leaving in a few minutes. When I get there I assume you are at Davis North.
Bishop: ok I will tell her and yes we are.
Me. I assume I am going to go to ICU when I get to the hospital to see Bryan
Bishop: I don't know how to tell you this...
Me: ok so don't
I then hang up but all the dots connected. Reality just struck my son is dead.
So began the journey of a grieving parent. It's the hardest journey anyone could go on. In the beginning I felt like I not only lost my son but my mind. I would get lost going to the store or back home from the store, forget what I was doing. It wasn't the normal forgetfulness when I lost my train of thought, it didn't come back. Getting out of bed took every once of energy I had. I wanted to die and thought about death a lot. I put walls up to prevent me from getting hurt again. I wanted people around me but wanted to be left alone. I pushed people away, I wouldn't call people back I was just plain nasty to family and friends close to me. I blamed myself.
After the first year I could see what I was doing and knew I had to pull myself together. I had no idea how. I could see I was hurting people, truthfully I didn't care, but I wanted to care. I wanted to go back to the nice caring person I was before but I had built way to many walls to even know where to start. I was a mess
This last year has been trying to find a happy medium between who I was before Bryan died and who I am becoming after loosing him. I have had a lot of repairing of relationships and just letting go of some relationships. I have a lot of forgiving to do, mostly forgiving myself of not being the mom I thought I should be or wanted to be. I also had to forgive Bryan which meant I had to accept and understand the fact that Bryan had made a lot decisions that had lead to him dying.
Accepting and forgiving Bryan was hard. I didn't ever know I had to until my brother I aw died in May. I got really mad at Randy for not taking care of himself and leaving Lori and Megan. I couldn't understand why I was so mad at him. After a lot of prayer God showed me it was mad at Bryan for leaving me. I wish I could say I understand, accept and forgive Bryan but I am still in the middle of it. I might be in the middle for along time.
My journey as a grieving parent will never be through. It will always be an uphill trail. As I continue forward there are times now the ground levels out or even goes downhill for a few minutes. I don't catch myself every time I laugh or smile. It's starting to become natural again. My world is not completely dark anymore.
Writing this blog helps me to process my feelings but I pray that it will help another grieving parent. Maybe to help the know they are not alone or maybe to realize they haven't gone crazy and maybe to know they can keep moving forward in their journey.
I miss Bryan more every day. I always wonder if he would have gotten clean, gone to college or got married and had kids. How I could have prevented his death. I still don't know how to answer everyday questions. How many kids do you have? How old are they? What do they do? Where are they? I don't think answering those questions well ever be natural or feel right.
