fessionally as well as emotionally. She’s
been very supportive. Sometimes I felt
that somebody up there was taking care
of me. I couldn’t have asked for anything
better. And the firm was behind her, and
she was behind me, and she just carried
me along. I put my whole life in her
hands, and here we are.

OITM: You’ve said a couple of times
now that you feel like a mom, now that
this is finally settled. Did you not feel
like one before, when all this was hang-
ing in the balance?

SB: The hard part is that Susan gave birth
to Collin. I was the secondary person. I
had to go through my own bonding pe-
riod with him that I really didn’t have in
the beginning because of the time factor,
because Sue was home with Collin all the
time. So I guess that’s what I really mean
—— becoming primary caretaker, primary
person in his life.

The accident was very tragic. My last
memory of Susan is lying on the ground
next to her, giving her CPR. That was the
last time I saw her before they took her
away in the ambulance. Collin looks just
like Susan. He looks exactly like her.
And for the most part in the beginning it
was really hard because I was at such a
loss losing her. I didn’t want to allow my-
self to get that close to him because I was
afraid that someone was going to take
him away from me, and then I wouldn’t
have him. And Susan was gone. As time
went on and I saw that things were get-
ting better, I allowed myself to really let
down and just bring him into my life. I
believed that nobody was going to take
him away from me. That period of time
was really hard. I never had a chance to
say goodbye to her. I wasn’t at the ser-
vice when they buried her. So my last
memories are the ones of the scene of the
accident, which are real hard because
they were horrible.

OITM: Now you can live your life again.

SB: Yes, for the most part. I guess the rest
is up to me. I’ve learned my lesson, what
I call my lesson in life. And I feel that, by
the same token, I stood by Susan, which
was really important. And now I feel like
I’ve done what I wanted to do, what she
wanted me to do, and we got through it
and we won. I always had this feeling
that she was sitting on my shoulder all
the time, whispering in my ear. The day
before we left on our weekend before the
accident, she gave me a card. And the last
statement she made in the card was, “Re-

member, you can do whatever you
want.” And that always rang in my ear.
That’s where I gathered a lot of my
strength from. She believed in me, and I
couldn’t let her down.

OITM: What did you mean by, you
“learned your lesson?”

SB: That I needed to slow down. I really
needed to slow down and look at my
life. I was a very quiet person, quiet, but
moving continuously. I didn’t talk a lot.
I kept a lot inside. Usually, that’s how I
dealt with things. I created a lot of un-
necessary stress for myself. Now I know
how to ask for things. If I need some-
thing, I ask for it. I’ve worked very hard
at being able to verbalize and com-
municate with people. That’s made
things a lot easier for me, as well as be-
ing a strong point in my new re-
lationship. Not to run away from prob-
lems, but to deal with them
immediately, when they’re at hand. You
just never know when the person that
you love is going to be gone. So just
deal daily. Deal. Get out there and fight.
Be committed. Commitment’s so im-
portant to me right now. The commit-
ment is to be within the relationship, to
be committed to it, to love and trust
through it and not have any self—doubt
or to be dishonest, because our lives are
so short. And the people that we love
are the most important thing in our
lives.

For the longest time I couldn’t feel the
sun, couldn’t feel the wind, because I
was so numb. And I’ll never forget the
first day —- I was walking to the hos-
pital. It was springtime and it was like
my senses returned to me. They were
gone for the longest period of time. I
smelled the lilacs. The lilacs were in
bloom. I stood there and cried because I
felt like I was coming alive again. I felt

December 1991

I was so dead for the longest time. I
mean, I lost half of me. I was healing.

Regaining those senses was very im-
portant. I never took my first vacation
until last Febniary. It had been two
years. I threw myself into my work, and
I worked harder than I ever had in my
life. I didn’t know what I was doing. I
just worked. Every day I could possibly
go to the hospital, I went. Because then
I didn’t have to deal with or think about
anything. And when I took my vacation
back in February, by the time I left, I
was edgl’. angered. I was like a bear. I
went away and I allowed myself to just
let it out, just to let it go. I went back to
places where Susan and I walked on the
beach, where we walked for hours plan-
ning Collin, and when I looked down,
this little boy was running next to me.
Of course, without Susan. And I al-
lowed myself to cry. And I felt it. And I
held him, and we walked and we talked.
And I shared the experience with him.
And I just kept doing this for two
weeks. So that by the time I came back,
I felt very cleansed. That I had that ca-
tharsis. I was able at that point just to let
it go. It was gone. It was another sense
of saying goodbye to Susan.

It’s come full circle. It really has. And
each peg of the wheel, with time in be-
tween, has given me time to deal with
each individual factor. Of letting go, of
continuing to let go. But as I let go of
the material parts of our lives, as well as
the emotional investment, I still sit with
this little boy on my lap, and I still share
her and him together, because she’s so
very much a part of him. And I think
that that’s what’s most important. That I
shouldn’t think about Susan really being
gone, because I still can hold a part of
her. V

Partners in Recovery and Growth Inc., Therapists

Erica Marks, S.A.C., A.C.H., Director
Giita Clark, Associate
Sherry Hunt, B.A., A.C.H., Associate

Sexuality, Substance Abuse, Spirituality, Parenting, Gestalt, T.A.
Hypnosis, Individuals, Couples, Families, Groups

182 Main Street
Burlington, Vermont 05401
Sliding fee scale Phone: 865-2403

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