With these two recent tragic deaths, it really brings Scott and I back to those first few days, weeks and months after Quinn died, and it makes us realize how far we have come. I don’t know if you ever “heal” from something like a loss of a child, because to me healing means fixing and you can’t fix a loss of a child.
What we can do is learn to live the life we have been given, and realize to move forward, we need to accept that we cannot change the past, we can only control our future. You need to let go of finding someone to blame, you need to let go of wishing things were different, you need to forgive yourself for not being able to change what happened… and you need to realize there is a lot of life to live with those who are here and those that love you.
If you stop living, you have lost. You cannot move forward while living with regret. It doesn’t mean you won’t think these thoughts, but you will know how to move past them when they creep in.
Although I would give everything I have to have Quinn back, that’s not a choice/option I’m given. But I will live every day grateful for the son I had, and all the wonderful memories of the time I had with him.
Quinn may not be here in body, but he will always be here in spirit. We talk of him often, and allow him to be in our present life, and that helps us feel connected.
Moving forward for us has been finding a mission to do something positive from something so tragic. Quinn wasn’t given the opportunity to have his own future, but in his memory and using his story, the impact he will have on others will be invaluable and others will be saved because of what happened to him and our family.
I think healing is a mindset of coming to the realization that we cannot change the past, but we can decide what to do with our future.
We chose to continue to live, and to make a difference. We know that choice is what Quinn would have wanted. He cared too much about others for us to stop caring!
