New Beginnings

I found out two days ago my nineteen year old daughter is pregnant.

It's going to be okay, even though the circumstances are less than stellar. She isn't the first girl to have terrible taste in men, but she does have her own apartment, has a job and insurance, as well as being one of those old souls who was simply meant to have children. (She was so bossy as a child Josh used to call her Mom sub-set one). It will be hard, but she knows we love her and are here for her, that we will love our grandchild immensely no matter what.

She is older than I was when I had Josh, so I would be the last person in the world to tell her it can't be done. But damn....She could sure use her big brother about now. I even wonder if this didn't happen because of how much she misses him. In an effort to fill the abyss he has left in her heart...all our hearts.

He loved children and would have been an incredible uncle. He would have been an incredible father. Instead his son and his nephew will know him from our memories, not their own.

Some days, I could really be pissed off at him if I didn't miss him so much.

Exquisite

So often, when I post here I feel better for having written, yet still feel I've very poorly expressed myself. Many of my posts have dealt with my feelings of gratitude, not for the loss of my son, but for the joy of his life. Each time I post something along those lines it leaves me wondering if I've somehow negated the depth of my sorrow or left the impression I'm less profoundly changed by Josh's death than I really am.

I am not whole. I will never BE whole again. My sorrow doesn't diminish as time goes by, instead it becomes easier to fake happiness with practice. Yet, there are times I truly do feel deep abiding joy. Perhaps it's a different joy than I felt seven months ago, but it's joy nonetheless. Joy for the child I was given the chance to know and love. Joy for the multitude of lessons I have learned virtue of his life, and sadly, also his death.

Yesterday, while reading a new Dean Koontz book (Odd Hours) my daughter gave me for Mother's Day, I came across the following passage and it so closely fit with what I've been feeling I wanted to preserve it here in order to find it more readily when I need to remind myself of where I want to be.....

"Loss is the hardest thing. But it's also the teacher that's the most difficult to ignore."

"Grief can destroy you--or focus you. You can decide a relationship was all for nothing if it had to end in death, and you alone. Or you can realize every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, so much meaning it scared you, so you just lived, just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn't allow yourself to consider the sacredness of it. But when it's over and you're alone, you begin to see it wasn't just a movie or dinner together, not just watching sunsets together, not just scrubbing a floor or washing dishes together or worrying over a high electric bill. It was everything, it was the why of life, every event and precious moment of it. The answer to the mystery of existence is the love you shared sometimes so imperfectly, and when the loss wakes you to the deeper beauty of it, to the sanctity of it, you can't get off your knees for a long time, you're driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by gratitude for what preceded the loss. And the ache is always there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, is to disrespect the gift of life."

This was speaking of a different kind of relationship and I didn't spend a lot of time with Josh scrubbing floors or worrying about the electric bill the essence is still spot on. I also can't say I took him for granted very often, yet I did. We all do. It's not something I can explain other than to say no matter how much you think you love someone, you can't ever realize how much you really love them until they are gone. You can only imagine the impact their loss would have, you can't truly experience it unless and until they aren't there.

My son is dead. All I have left are my memories and my love for him. He was exquisite, the best son anyone could ever ask for. Brilliant, beautiful, kind, compassionate, devoted and loving. I will love him to the end of my days, not his. I will not allow his death to be the only memory I hold on to. I will not allow myself to only remember how he died, instead of how he lived. I can't give him back his life, so I will spend mine living for him.

Exquisite I tell you.

His life means more than his death.

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.