Reflections and thoughts from a life well lived....and lost

I think to myself often:"why-WHY can't you just unstick yourself and really ,really join the living?" It's a many layered question. I,myself didn't have a childhood filled with tons of happy memories,places we had gone and excellent familial relationships,truth be told. I had what i needed, but not what I wanted to make ME feel whole. I told myself if I ever had children they would never want for anything. Experiences, quiet one on one time, camps,a feeling of togetherness. I absolutely-WE absolutely succeeded at such a family. Never staying still long,and always,always together. Thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos chronicle our life and our experiences. Of course,we had our issues,every family does.....but the laughter and the joy exceeded the mundane crap of everyday. 

It was really quite shocking to have our son,Keith sit both of us down and tell us he had become addicted to painkillers and needed help,which we did-right away...which then escalated to oxy's then heroin in short order and 18 rehabs in 2 years. The final rehab release 1 and a half hours before he left us. Stunning,exhausting rollercoaster that ended in horrified stunned disbelief that hasn't quite left me in 10 whole years.

I definitely realize my loss yet I just can't accept it. How do you invest your whole being into a child,your very essence, and have such an outcome? Why us? Why not us? It's so confusing. So hard to believe,i live my new life as a stunned spectator. I shower,i clean,i laugh,i race around-but my head and my heart remain in my before life and I can't seem to have others understand. Thank goodness for my husband and my daughter breathing life into me daily,yet it is a life lived half heartedly.

What to say,what to do......

I'm just really missing my child. My beautiful boy. Forever 20. Forever in my heart. I do the best i can every single day to make it a good day,but i always have that underlying sadness that sometimes is just too hard to overcome. What he was to me..IS to me,i can't put into words. What I am without him,i feel in every bone in my body. 

As I look around his bedroom hoping to see something,anything i haven't seen...I realize I have looked  at the same objects for 10 years. They aren't going to change.This is what i have left. I let my mind drift back a bit...then I come back.But I always,always leave a little window open and reflect as I go about my day. You can't change a Mom. She IS where her children are,and if she isn't-she wants to be. If she can't be......she thinks of them.....often.