The gift

I have lost nothing.
Instead, I have been given everything.

If I had to do it all over again knowing the outcome, powerless to change it, what would I chose? I would do it again without hesitation, without reservation. I could do no different. What greater testimony can there be to love? His life was well worth his loss. To have known him, to have held him, to have experienced HIM is the greatest gift I have ever been given. Even as I write this, with tears streaming down my face, there is also a smile.

The first eighteen years of my life was merely preparation to be his mother. He was my reward. I was born to be his mother, I will die still being his mother. His lack of physical presence makes it no less true. The very essesence of who I am was molded by his life, as well as the end of his time with me. I am a better person because of him.

I know his love. I'm no less familiar with it now than I ever was. My love for him is certainly no less. I wish I could continue to see him, yet don't I already know the fabric of his soul? I wish I could hear his thoughts, yet don't I already know what he would say? Perhaps not the individual words, but the essence. My child was no stranger to me. He was a continuation of me.

I knew my son. I saw him. I loved him, I rejoiced in him, I was proud of him, I argued with him, even, on occasion, battled with him. And it was beautiful. I bore witness to his life. So now, I am powerless to do anything other than mourn my loss while glorying in his life. No matter the pain, no matter the longing. None of it matters in reflection of what I was given for 26 years.

Josh is not lost to me, he is in every fiber of my being, every turn of my thoughts, every breath I take. His body as I knew it is gone, yet even in his cremation he became part of the clouds. He is in the sunshine, the raindrops, the new growth in spring. He IS.

I am the luckiest woman I know.

This is what truly matters to me. This is what I wish to share with the world of my child.

Today is not a dress rehearsal.

So what will I do with this one wild life which I have been given?

I will Choose What Matters.