When You Needed Me the Most

We learn, from an early age by words, actions and deeds, that when we love deeply we will know, with an instinct born of that love, when something is wrong or bad is about to happen. We believe this to be true and that if we love enough, love will conquer everything, nothing is impossible in love. Almost from birth, we have been saturated in the knowledge that love conquers all. This word is overused, thrown out there as a reason for war, and excuse for abuse, what makes the world go around. We carry this thing called love around as a badge, the end all of everything, the answer to the universe, the key to life. It is also our very destruction. When someone we love dies suddenly, our shock is that we did not see it coming, we did not love enough or they did not love us enough. Where was I when you needed me the most?

I came under fire in the early days, not too long after Tim's death. After all, he was here with me, how could I not see what was coming? Being his mother, how could I not know? How could I not feel it if I loved him so deeply? Oh yes, the ignorant can be very cruel, but I felt the same way. How could I not know? That will always be with me. Tim and I knew when the other was hurt or upset. He would call me just to say, 'Are you okay, mom?' We can look back and say we felt something was wrong and beat ourselves up day after day for not acting on that instinct. We alone, out of the whole world, could have saved our loved one. Arrogant of us, but that is how we see it. We will find no ease, no solace in our guilt for having failed them.

I find that I am actually grateful that I did not feel this coming. Can you imagine how much more horrible it would be if you felt it, did everything to prevent it and still have it happen? Would it ease that guilt if you had gone through all that and still lost them? No, it wouldn't, for we believe that we could have done even more. Truth is, if we were mean't to do it, we would have. I don't believe ones death is written in stone, that it is set from the day of your birth. I do believe that actions are set into motion, to be played out with the ending not decided. But yet, it does not matter, for he is gone. He is gone and I grieve. I wrestle with emotions that are beyond my understanding. Had someone told me that emotions like this existed, I would not have believed them. One must live them to believe them.

Often, I think about what I could have done that may have changed this ending. I realize that maybe I could have changed it that day, but what about the next day or the day after that, the next week or month or year. Yes, more time with Tim, but at what cost to him? We don't know what the future would have held for them. All we see is that they will not see this, hear that, do this. We don't know if instead, their future held something too horrible to contemplate. We only see what is lost, not what might have been. In my selfishness, I will still wish I had known and been able to prevent it. I try to see that maybe, just maybe, I was there when he needed me the most.

Each day in this world without my son is a struggle. There are okay days, and then there are really bad ones. Life has always been that way, but now, it is more so. We don't know how good life is until death knocks at our door. We become a bundle of emotions not known to man until that time. I have trust issues now. After all, I should have gone before my son, right? I should have gone and left him in this sorrow and agony? If he has gone on to something greater, grander and wonderful, how could I wish it to be otherwise? Because I still need him. Selfish but true. Because I still need him.

As we travel this path of sorrow we will encounter a lot of things that we never experienced in our 'other' world. We will have thoughts and feelings that are alien to us but are becoming our normal. We will carry a guilt almost too heavy to bear. We will see people different, feel differently toward them and also hear what they leave unspoken. We will doubt our very existence and who we are. Many will walk away from us and lay the blame on us, most will accept that blame, I don't. I have walked through the fires of hell, still walking. I refuse to burn there. I will always wonder if I failed Tim in some way. I will always wonder why I was not there when he needed me the most. Then, I will wonder if maybe I was there when he needed me the most, for how am I to know when that was? I assume it was his last day, but was it? Maybe he did not need me then. We can assume all we want, feel the guilt and pain of it, but we will never know the truth of it.