Keening

Keening: the action of wailing in grief for a dead person.

I didn’t know there was a name for it until this past Wednesday.

But I’ve lived it.

I lived it before we lost him and I lived it after we lost him.

That absolutely deep, guttural, grief-filled wail.

I’ve lived it a few times. It’s awful and cleansing, all at once.

It first happened the Sunday before we lost him. Tommy was headed out of town for work and we had gone shopping for some clothes. When we arrived home, I couldn't get out of the car. It's like my body was frozen. I just started to wail. I couldn't stop. I sometimes wonder if I knew the pain that was coming that Friday evening...

The night we lost Luke, I didn't keen, I wept. I wept as they handed him to me. Our perfect baby boy, gone from this world to paradise. I could barely move. I just wept. It was unreal. It was impossible. This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to die. He was supposed to beat the odds.

In the days that followed, I still didn't keen (at least not that I remember). I was catatonic. I was so sad. The grief was enveloping and it took everything out of me to get out of bed and face each day. My incredible Tommy and loving father went to the funeral home. They chose Luke's casket and his special place (he's buried on top of his Pop Pop - Tommy's dad) because I couldn't face the finality of it all. Thankfully, I was able to pull myself together enough to choose the readings and music for Luke's funeral mass. Amazing Grace and Ave Maria still make me well up with tears.

The next time keening happened was when we arrived at the funeral home. We only had a family visitation and Luke was in one of the small rooms. When we walked into the room, I saw the casket. And our baby boy. The wave of sorrow that washed over me was unbearable. Some people don't agree with open caskets and others have questioned our choice {why would anyone ever question a choice made by grieving parents?}, but seeing Luke lying there peacefully in his Easter outfit wrecked me. He was the most beautiful, most perfect baby. So I keened. I wailed, without realizing the volume of my cries. Without caring what others thought. This was our baby and I was his mother. And I couldn't save him. And I needed him here.

I keened once again the day we moved out of our house in The Woodlands. Luke had been gone for about two months or so when moving day arrived. The last time we stayed in that house was the night before Luke was born. After he was born, I couldn't stay there again. We knew we were moving to Tennessee, so we decided it would be easier with Emily and Matthew for us to stay at my parents' house.

Here I was. All by myself in our first house. It was quiet. It was full of furniture, but felt so empty. The house where Luke didn't come home. So before the movers came, I let out guttural screams. I wept. I sobbed. I keened. I told God that Luke was my baby. That I wanted him back. That it wasn't fair. {Looking back, it hurts my heart that I was so angry, but I remember Monsignor Sheltz telling me and Tommy at the internment that God would understand our anger and that it was ok.} Imagine my surprise when the movers arrived just as my screams were the loudest. I tried to explain, but I don't think they understood, as evidenced by one of them taking their tip money out of my purse (yes, that really happened - they stole from a grieving mother). 

I can't remember if there were any other times when I keened, but these are the times that stand out in my mind. I've grown over the last 18 years. But there will never be a moment when I don't miss that precious boy. When I don't think about the "what-ifs" and the "what he would bes". When I don't wish he could be here with us, cutting up with
his siblings, making fun of Mom and Dad, graduating from high school and going to college.

Luke Thomas Haberman. You are our forever baby boy. And we are so very blessed to be your parents. Please pray for us. And please send us signs that you are near. Our beautiful boy. We love you.