2022 Walk to Remember — Opening Speech
Hello, my name is Katie Román. I am speaking on behalf of my family, my husband José, my living son Mateo, and in the rainbow bag, in his little urns, Diego Fox. Diego was born on January 11, 2019, and died on June 11, 2019.
I never really talked about death before Diego died. I was the awkward person when it came to emotions and feeling around death. I had been fortunate to never experience a significant loss before. I didn’t know what to say when someone died so I would be polite, say sorry and then move on really quick. In hindsight, I probably have said some dumb things to people. Now after Diego’s death, I want to talk about death because in death I can talk about my son’s life. I don’t get to talk about his first words, or first steps or first birthday. I get to talk about planning his funeral, picking out his urns and all of those things to which people just say “I can’t imagine” and then they get to move on with their lives.
How many times have you now heard someone say to you “I can’t imagine” in response to your child/grandchild/niece nephew dying? Too many, I am sure. I used to say that to people. “Oh, I can’t imagine, that must be really hard” and then I just moved on with my life. My world kept moving. I now hate when people say “I can’t imagine.” They’re right; they can’t imagine. They don’t have to imagine, but I have lived the unimaginable. We have lived through the unimaginable.
I would now rather talk about death than talk about how hard it is to coordinate activities for someone’s multiple children or how someone’s kids don’t get along or maybe how they get along perfectly. If I sound angry it’s because I am. I’m bitter. I am angry and I am broken.
I am angry because I don’t get to be a parent untouched by the “unimaginable.” I don’t get to be the mom struggling to schedule two kids and annoyed because schedules won’t line up. I don’t get to be blissfully ignorant and not know the pain of what is feels like to have a child die. I can’t fully relate to those parents anymore and I want to tell them how lucky they are that they are untouched by this pain. I want to shout at them and say how fortunate they are that those are the only issues they are dealing with.
When Diego died there was literally a hole in my heart. You couldn’t see it, but I could feel it. It hurt to breath. It hurt to exist. I felt like I could barely stand. I felt so fragile, like I was a leaf in the wind and a big gust would just push me over and take me away. It hurt to watch TV, everything had a baby in it or siblings or all the happy endings that my family did not get. I couldn’t really listen to music as it all felt wrong. I cried every day on the way to work for a long time and then I would have to walk in and pretend to be fine.
Everyone else’s life kept moving. My life ground to halt and nothing seemed to really matter. People don’t realize the pain we carry after our children’s death. Others think you have another child and the pain goes away; you’re magically healed and the hole in your heart is gone. It doesn’t work that way and time doesn’t take away our pain; it just dulls the ache.
Our scars our invisible. People don’t understand the new anxiety that comes with losing a child. They don’t understand why we might watch our kids a little closer or have irrational feelings at what seem like illogical times. My son died at pick up time. My husband called and said, “Diego is unresponsive.” I now get anxious if it takes too long for my husband to pick up Mateo or my phone rings at 5:30 pm – 5:45 pm, my heart is pounding. While I probably will never experience a similar moment, the scars are there.
The day after Diego died, we had no clue what to do with ourselves. We managed to get Mateo to pre-school (late of course) and we went to a doctor’s appointment for my husband. The doctor asked “How are you doing?” and, there we were, shells of functioning people and we just said “Not good – our son died yesterday.” The doctor, a little shocked and rightfully so, asked us why we were there. We said we didn’t know what else to do because what do you do after your child dies? In a moment your world is shattered, but everything keeps moving on all around you. What do you do?
I feared Diego would just get erased from the world. I wanted his name everywhere. I love his name. I felt like his 5 months of memories were not enough and I could barely remember any of it. I wrote a journal and tried to write what I could remember but it felt like so little. How was his life just gone when it didn’t even really start?
It often seems like no one else can understand all these feelings. And there are no words that can fully capture them. It took me 2 years to really be able to say “my son died.” It’s a short 3-word sentence but it’s the hardest sentence I’ve ever had to say. I hate that sentence. I am angry I have to say that sentence.
When people ask me if Mateo is an only child, I am now capable of saying “my other son died” or “he’s my only living son.” It often makes for an awkward moment. However, it’s important to say that my child died because I shouldn’t shy away from talking about it because it makes others uncomfortable, and to not mention it is to deny my son existed. Diego dying isn’t just my story. It’s my husband’s story; it’s Mateo’s story and it’s Diego’s story; so, if I say, “Yes. I only have one son,” that’s denying our stories and who we are. And we deserve to share our stories.
I never know how it’s going to go when I talk about Diego and is his death. Sometimes when I say something I am met with a caring look, sometimes people just gloss over it and sometimes it’s that look from the movies that goes by in slow motion. The person doesn’t know what to say to you. They just know the “unimaginable” happened to you and they’re in disbelief. But they get to live with just an uncomfortable moment. I live with my son’s death every day.
It’s been 3 years 4 months since Diego died and that gaping hole in my heart feels a little less gaping, but it’s still there. It will always be there. I will always be hurt and be angry that my son died. I will always have to wonder who he would be, who we would be with him. I have a tattoo (which matches my husband’s; I never thought I would have a matching tattoo with anyone). I also have a tree in my backyard for Diego, but I don’t have him. I am not the same person I was on the morning of June 11, 2019. I am angry that he died. I am angry for everything I don’t get to have; everything we don’t have as a family.
I haven’t figured out how to honor my son, which weighs on me a lot. However, I am starting to understand that perhaps it’s not a grand gesture or a scholarship fund or a foundation that is how I honor him, but I honor him every day by trying to be a better person. I try to help those I can, by being kind because I don’t know what burden others are carrying, which is what these past couple of years have taught me. I honor him by letting myself feel my emotions.
Don’t be afraid to let yourself feel the anger, the sadness, and the grief. You are not alone. Everything you feel – we feel. Your journey will be different than mine, you will grieve differently than I will, but you are not alone. Your children are not forgotten. They are here with us. They are remembered through everyone you interact with, through everyone here. They are remembered through the people we have become and continue to become because of the way they touched our lives—whether they were here with us for 5 months or 5 minutes.
-Katie Knox Román, Diego’s mom