The last touch

In the last three weeks I’ve discovered there are things too large for the mind to absorb all at once. My son's death has certainly fallen into that category. I find myself living in two alternate realities; the one where this can all be undone with some act that I’ve yet to discover, and the one where my son’s skin will never again be beneath my fingertips. On the last day I was able to make physical contact with him I ached with love, sorrow and the fear of forgetting.

Josh only stood about 5’4” and it was easy to forget how incredibly firm and solid he was, how male he was, until I wrapped my arms around him. No matter how often I saw him, I was always briefly startled by the concreteness of his body, the sheer strength of his arms as he returned my embrace. On more than one occasion I had marveled at his form, the near perfection of him, not the least surprised that he had been asked to pose for more than one art class. (A task that he accepted, to my eternal gratefulness, since I now have sketches from them)


This time, when I gently touched his arm I was once again startled, but this time it was from the icy chill emanating from his skin. I immediately laid my hand firmly against him trying to transfer my warmth. My poor, poor baby was cold and the mother in me rebeled against leaving him in that condition. The many nights of his life that it was my job to sneak into his room and pull the covers up over his sleeping body flashed through my mind, and it was agonizing to me to not have a blanket to swaddle him in, but merely a thin crisp sheet which only held in the cold. The urge to cover him with my own body, to let my body heat seep into him and warm his core and extremities was nearly overwhelming. At that moment in time, I struggled to grasp the realization that he wouldn’t wake up if only he were warm. His flesh was as eerily familiar to my fingers in death as it was in life. Firm and strong beneath my fingertips, once again jolting in it’s perfection. Death imitating life.

His eyelashes were long and beautiful, the envy of every girl he ever dated, but this time there was a gap in them and it took me a few minutes to understand they had most likely been pulled out from tape. His hair had been cut and looked dull and chopped, but was still silky sliding between my fingers. Each time my gaze began to settle on the cosmetic work around his temple I quickly refocused on something less foreign than the flesh colored putty filling and hiding the damage he had done.

Laying my hand over his chest I could feel the coarse softness of his hair beneath the cotton gown he was wearing. The cushion of air created by his hair allowed his chest to feel less frigid and my hand kept returning to rest lightly just above his heart, longing for a beat to flutter under my questing touch. The blue on white pattern of the gown lacked only a hospital logo and I kept begging the universe to warp back to an acceptable place where he was injured rather than dead. Waiting with futility for him to take a breath, to feel the slightest stir. At one point my mind threatened to crack as it tried to make my fantasy become reality. The finality was unbearable, knowing this would be the last time to touch him, to etch permanently into my memories the feel of this beautiful human being who once resided within my womb.

As I stood there alone with my child, I told him how much I loved him. How grateful I was for his life, how much I already missed him, how lost I felt without him. Somewhere in the midst of my anguish I realized I had one final task to accomplish for him. For twenty six years my only wish for him was to be happy, to be at peace. If the only way for that to happen was for me to live without him, then that is what I would learn to do.

With all the love a mother’s heart can hold, I whispered, “ For you, I can do anything.”