Seeing it through.

It's been ages since I've written here....almost 4 years.

It's been almost ten years since his death.
I can't say it's become any easier and yet it has become... familiar?

Perhaps I'm better at grieving?

I'm coming to accept my new normal.

I'm becoming comfortable with my tears.
I'm becoming friends with anguish.
I'm becoming better able to let go of my need to record every thought, every memory, every bad day. 

With time, I'm coming to realize no amount of life's forward momentum will ever make him less a part of my life or me less his mom.

So, forward I have trudged. 

Some days with a light heart,

Some days with leaden boots. 

I've come to accept there will never be answers to satisfy my need to know why he is gone. I've made peace with knowing if I knew every secret of the universe I would still grieve for my son. He still wouldn't be here, my heart would still be broken, and every single day would still be my onus to bear.
"I don't know how you do it." 

"You're so strong. I don't think I could survive losing a child."'

I get that a lot.
I used to feel guilty for living. As if my love for my child isn't as big and all encompassing as their love for their children.
But see, I know something they don't know. 

I'm no stronger than anyone else.
Instead, I am humbled. By how little I knew and how much I've been left to learn.
I have learned that pain alone won't kill you.
I have learned you truly can't will yourself to stop breathing. Trust me.
I've learned so many things. Like the depths of my own heart. As strange as it may sound, I have a much better understanding of how deep runs my love for my children than I had before.
When my children were born my heart made a promise my head didn't fully comprehend. A lifetime commitment of love.
But, truly, I'm not exceptionally strong and my explanation for my continued survival is simple.
I am doing what all loving parents do for their children.
I'm seeing it through.
Because, that's what parents do.
Our children don't come with guarantees of being easy, convenient, healthy, or even tolerable sometimes.
Yet, we are committed.
Without time limits, spatial boundaries or conditions, we love them.
We see them through sleepless nights, bouts of fever, midnight trips to the emergency room.
We see them through bad grades, fights with friends, slamming doors, and broken hearts.
We see them through their triumphs and their failures.
We see them through their bad decisions and sometimes, sadly, through their deaths.
None of that died with Josh. It transcended him. It belongs to me.
I can no more stop loving him and being his mom than I can will myself to stop breathing. 

If my parenting experience has included planning his funeral, sorting his belongings, scattering his ashes, and a myriad of tasks others can't imagine doing, well, I'm on a different path but we are all on  the journey.
I am not strong.
I am honoring a commitment that was made nearly thirty-six years ago because my heart gives me no other options. My head no longer asks it to.
I am loving my child the only way I know how. Fiercely, and without apology.

I'm seeing it through.
Not to the end of his life but to the end of mine.