Within The Storm

As I write this, it is closing in on fourteen months. I ask myself if I am still a novice, a babe in the woods. Is there worse than this waiting to blindside me just around the corner? I have realized that as horrible as this is, there is worse. If life has taught me one single thing, it is how contrary it can become. Contradictions walk side by side, hand in hand. There is no black and white but multiple shades of unending gray. Within the gray are the many colors of the universe, hidden by the sorrows of grief. Joy exists, overshadowed by extreme sadness. There is no trust for we trusted that we would leave before the ones we loved did. To me that has become wrong thinking now for it says that I would condemn them to what I have been condemned to, a future of heartache. I did not want my son to know this sorrow, nor my daughter or grandsons or those who love me. If they love me as I have loved, the width of loss speaks for itself. I know they grieve, I can only hope they do not know the depth that it can take one to. I hope they never know.

There was a short time that I wondered what I did that was so horrible that I needed to be hurt so deeply. We become selfish in our grief and that is not wrong, we need to be selfish. If we don't protect ourselves at this most tender, desperate time, we will not rise from the well of death. We are not being punished for some wrong or oversight. It is not about us, yet it is all about us for we are the ones left behind. Tim is my only son, the youngest, the most troubled and he as well as my only daughter and grandsons are my gifts, not my burdens. To know these tender, loving souls is a privilege that we don't even realize we have been granted. Their presence forever changed my world just as Tim's loss almost destroyed it. To lose another would destroy it again. We rebuild the best we can but carry the knowledge now that it can all change in a second. It is a fear best pushed away or we will not be able to walk into each new day.

It is hard to allow yourself to live again. That empty space will never be filled. We slowly learn to move around it but never away from it. We do not leave them behind, we carry them with us. In time, the constant hurt eases a little. For some of us the moments become further apart, for others it remains the same. This does not mean we are forgetting or hiding them away, it just means we have incorporated this loss into daily living. We learn to live with it. Each of us will live it in our own way. Some will hurt more, some will hurt less, some will stay at that moment of loss. No one can tell you how to walk with your sorrow. Only you can do that for yourself. Many are willing to help you along the way, let them, you are helping them heal a little too.

The first year after Tim left, I talked and talked about him excessively. I hear that is normal which is a good thing because I had no control over it. As time moved on, I talked less about how we lost him and more about who he is. It was not unusual to mention him when he was alive, it should not be unusual to mention him now. I have decided that if others are uncomfortable with this, the fault is within them. They will get use to it or step away but I will not stop saying his name to ease others. He lived, he was real, he did things, said things, he had a life. That has not changed and never will. I talk to my grandson about things his daddy did. It would have been the same had he lived. I will not hide my love for my son away any more than my love for those who are still with me.

Loving anyone scares me because I know the pain of loss. I also know that though he is gone, the love is not. I hurt to my very soul and beyond that I cannot talk to him, face to face. I cannot hear his laughter or raunchy jokes. He could come up with some really terrible ones. I cannot touch his skin or smell him, or hear him say 'I love you', yet it does not change the fact that he still exists. I pull his voice from my heart, his laughter rings in my ears, his jokes live on. I can see the way he set his mouth to one side when he was annoyed and the look in his eyes when he first gazed on his new born son. So much living in such a short time. Memories hurt, yes they do and they sooth. A contrary world we live in. The way is long and dark and painful but there are nuggets of ease within the turmoil, gentle blessings within the storm. With love from a 'Forever Mom.'