She Took a Bite of Her Candy Bar

She took a bite of her candy bar... 

If you are a fan of "This is Us" the way I am, you know exactly what the title of my blog post is referring to.  You remember the doctor walking over to Rebecca (Mandy Moore) and telling her that one of the complications of smoke inhalation is that it puts a terrible stress on the lungs.  The doctor continued to explain that Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) went into cardiac arrest.  He said, "It was catastrophic and I'm afraid we've lost him."

She then, looking confused (and more than likely in shock), took a bite of her candy bar.  

He had told her calmly.  You could see the desperation in his eyes.  You could tell he didn't want to tell her but when she didn't believe him he had to tell her again.  He said, "Mrs. Pearson, your husband has died."

I was told Charlie would more than likely die.  I was told the damage that had been done to his brain due to the seizures he was constantly having was irreversible.  I was told that if he were able to make it even to the next day it would only be a matter of time before all of his organs would shut down.  I remember telling the doctor standing in front of me that day that I wanted him to go away.  I remember saying "You must not believe in miracles then...".  I was furious.  I couldn't think straight and I wasn't kind.  I didn't know what I was supposed to do with that information.  I just walked away from him and tried to put all the things he had just said out of my mind while I sat with Charlie.  

Even on a television show you can see mixed up pieces of your own story.  I know in this show in particular so many stories have been told and brought to life.  Families walking through the many stories they've shared get to see something similar to their own life play out before them on a television screen.  If there is one thing I can say about this show it is that they have kept it very real.

They are not sugar coating or making endings "happily ever after" until the characters have lived through the hurt and suffer through the real, raw emotion.  On this episode that moment when Rebecca took a bite of that candy bar made me sob.  I've lived that exact same feeling, that exact same thing.

The moment John and I left the hospital after Charlie died I asked him to drive me through McDonalds.  I have no idea what I got to eat or drink that night at nearly midnight but it was a moment in my life when nothing felt right and I had no idea what my next step should be.  Shock took over my body and all I could think to do was go through a drive-thru.  
 
When I came to school today I heard mixed reactions about that exact moment in television.

One person said, "I get it." While someone else said, "Why in the world would she have taken a bite of that candy bar?  Why wasn't she running to find her husband and check to see that he was ok?!  Why did they write that part of the story that way."  I wanted to defend Rebecca, but of course she is only a character on a television show, so I held my tongue.  I thought to myself, 'That is the difference between someone that didn't know their next step after an extremely traumatizing time and someone that hasn't yet experienced trauma similar to what played out before us last night after the Super Bowl.  Some of us get it and some of us do not understand, yet.'

It also reminded me that judging another person's reaction to trauma isn't fair when you can't say that you have been there.  It isn't really fair regardless of what you've experienced.  We all walk through it differently and for me I appreciate that this show shared what real shock may look like in a moment when people think they "know" how people should act.    

I am one of those people that can say, "I get it."  Of course I have not lost my husband but I did lose Charlie.  I had no idea what my next step was supposed to be after we left the hospital that night.  I knew I needed to pump even though I didn't have a baby to feed, I knew I needed to eat even if I wasn't hungry, and I knew I needed to lay down even if I couldn't sleep.  I did all of those things and then some that probably "wasn't right" to some when they think about what they would have done.   And just like Rebecca last night in the show, I live with the weird/guilty feeling that I went to McDonalds after Charlie died.  I will never forget that moment and I will always wonder, "Why did I do that?"  "What is wrong with me?"  I will always think about what I "should have done" according to "other people" that may or may not have gone through something similar.

Grief and shock are real things and I just hope (similar to the light that has been shown on many other real life circumstances) it brought some perspective to those that may or may not have felt that weird awkward, "now what?"  I am three and a half years away from that evening and I will never forget it.