Francine Lobis Wheeler - Do We Know How To Grieve 

 

 

On December 25th, 2012, it was Christmas morning, about 11:00 in the morning. We just opened presents, and I turned to my husband, David, and I said, “I can't sleep, I can't eat, I can't breathe.” And he said, “Honey, just try to relax. Go lay down. And I said, “No, I can't. I can't.” And I was like that, because 11 days before that, on December 14th, 2012, our son Ben was murdered in his first-grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School. So, that Christmas morning, I really couldn't do anything. But David, my husband, he convinced me to go lay down. So, I did. 

 

I was so exhausted that I immediately fell asleep. As soon as I was asleep, I looked to the side of the bed and there was Ben. He didn't say anything. He just opened the palm of my hand, he kissed it, he closed the palm of my hand. I woke up, and I ran to David and I said, “Oh, my gosh, D. Ben came to me and he kissed my hand. And I know why. I know why.” And he said, “Why?” And I said, “Because of the book I used to read to him, The Kissing Hand where the mother raccoon, she kisses her son Chester's hand when he's scared to go to school. And she says, ‘Just know that my love for you is always there.’” And so, that's what Ben gave me that day. 

 

So, then after that, I was asking him to come back. “Please come back. Show me another sign. Please come visit me. Please, please, please, I miss you so much.” And sure enough, a couple weeks later, he did. He came back in another dream. And in this dream, I was standing in the second floor of an elevator, and I went to the first floor, and then I went to the basement and the doors opened and there was Ben. And he said, “Mommy, you made it. I'm so glad.” We hugged and we kissed. And I said, “I love you.” And he said, “I love you,” and it was real. And he said, “But, Mama, I'm happy, but we're really worried about you. Don't let them trademark you.” 

 

Now, when Ben was alive, he wanted to be smart, like his big brother, Nate. And he would often use these very long words to try [chuckles] and sound smart, but sometimes the words didn't always match the sentence. And so, in the dream, I said to him, “Are you sure you mean trademark?” And he said it again, “Don't let them trademark you, Mama.” And then, I woke up and I told everybody about the dream. “What do you think he meant by trademark? Do you think he meant Sandy Hook shooting? What was it? What did he mean? What did he mean?” 

 

And in the meantime, that all this is going on, when you lose somebody that traumatically, that violently, that suddenly, you go back and you rethink things over and over and over again. I kept thinking about the last day of his life over and over and over again in my head. It was an interesting morning, because I was getting Nate and Ben ready for school, and I suddenly realized that Nate had book club and I said, “Oh, my gosh, guys, I forgot. We got to drop off Nate first. All right, get your stuff together. We got to move. We got to move.” I'm trying to clean up, and I'm stacking the dishwasher, and Benny comes over to me and he says, “Mama, what does forgiveness mean?” And I was like, “Oh, Ben, why are you asking me this right now? Come on, we got to go. We got to go.” And he said, “No, no, Mommy, what is forgiveness?” And I said, “I don't know, Ben. It's like when you do something wrong and the other person forgets about it. Now, come on, we got to go.”

 

So, I pack him up, we get in the car, we drop off Nate and I say to Ben, “Okay, Ben, you want to go back home and wait for the bus, or do you want to go to Starbucks for a treat?” And he said, “Starbucks.” So, we went to Starbucks, and he ordered a chocolate milk. I used to tell the story and said, hot chocolate, but then I found the receipt. It was chocolate milk. We sat down, and he said, “You know what, Mama? I'm going to be an architect when I grow up.” And I said, “Wow. Ben, that's amazing.” And he said, “No, wait, wait, wait. I'm going to be an architect and a paleontologist, because Nate's going to be a paleontologist, and I have to do everything Nate does.” 

 

And I said, “Well, you know, you're your own person, Ben. You don't have to do whatever your brother does.” And he said, “Oh, no, no. I'm always going to be with Nate. I love Nate. And I love you, Mommy.” And I said, “I love you too. You know, it's so nice to just be here, just the two of us. We never get that chance to do that.” And then he said, “Mommy, can I have your iPhone?” [audience laughter] So, I gave him the iPhone. And a couple minutes later, I took him to school and a half hour later, he was dead. So, I kept reliving that over and over and over. Did it happen? Was it that special? Did we really say I love you to one another? What was that? 

 

And in the meantime, that this is all happening, Newtown, where the school is, is just exploded like a bomb has gone off. And everybody is traumatized. There are grief counselors and trauma specialists flying in from all over the country trying to help us make some sense of any of it. And while this is all going on, we can't breathe. I still have to raise my other child. So, I take my son, Nate, to Lego camp one day in the middle of all of this craziness, and I walk in the door, and I see these women, and they're talking, and they look at me, and they stop talking. And then I keep walking and I could have sworn I heard one of them say “She lost her son at Sandy Hook.” 

 

Another time, I went to the grocery store. I still had to get groceries, and I'm shopping, and I see this woman, she looks at me, she starts to cry, she goes in the other direction. Most of the time, the conversations in the grocery store, I'd run into somebody I knew and they'd say, “Hi, Fran. How are you? Oh, my God. I shouldn't have said that. Oh, I don't know what to say.” And I'd say, “I don't know what to say.” And then they'd say, “I think about you all the time. If there's anything you ever need, we should get the boys together.” And I'd say, “I like that. That would be great.” And they wouldn't call. And I thought, I just want people around me. 

 

One time, I was running a 5K for my son Ben's charity. I'm doing the run, and I meet this other runner and he says, “Tell me about your son's charity.” And I said, “Well, it's in honor of my son, Ben, who died at Sandy Hook School.” And he said, “Oh, my God. Really?” And I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Oh, I remember where I was that day on December 14th.” And I thought to myself, please don't tell me where you were that day. I don't want to know. But he did. He did. [audience laughter] And he said, “Oh, yeah, we were going to have a Christmas party for my company. We heard about all those kids and teachers getting shot. So, we cancelled the party. We gave all that money to Sandy Hook and I went home and hugged my kids. It was an awful day.” Yeah, I was so pissed at him. I couldn't understand why he would do that. 

 

Another time, one day, I was out and this woman came up to me and she said, “I don't know if you know me, but I'm from Sandy Hook.” And I thought, oh, God, please don't tell me. Don't tell me how this makes you feel. I don't want to know. I really don't want to know. And she said, “I happened to be at Starbucks on the morning of December 14th.” And I said, “Oh.” And she said, “You know, I'm not really in the habit of eavesdropping, but I happened to notice what a beautiful conversation you were having with your son that day. And I thought maybe you'd want to know or I could tell you that.” I said, “Thank you.” I started to weep and weep. And she said, “Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you.” And I said, “Oh, no. No, no, no. You have no idea what you did.” 

 

“What is forgiveness, Mommy?” “It's when somebody does something wrong and the other person forgets about it.” I've had almost nine years without Ben. And in that time, I've often imagined what life would if he had survived the shooting. And I bet I would have said something stupid, or put my foot in my mouth or said too much or made it about me when I talked to a victim's family. And I get it, because we don't know how to grieve in this country. We don't know how to grieve in our culture. And I'm not mad at those people anymore. I forgive them. “Don't let them trademark you.” That's a little different. 

 

My husband David and I do not have the luxury of not being trademarked by the Sandy Hook shooting, because our son Ben died that day. But nobody can trademark my kissing hand, my beautiful conversation at Starbucks or the six years, three months and two days that our son Ben lived. Nobody can trademark my love for him. Thank you.