Succomb
I see you there
All glowing and glorious.
Surrounded by stars, winking at me, beckoning me to come.
It is so dark, but you light my path. You are so close, I want to reach out and touch your beauty.
The thought of it makes me smile, just for a moment, and then...
I see the water, murky and deep.
The calm surface hiding the undertow beneath.
Pulling me down ever deeper.
Struggling for breath.
Precious air.
Afraid I will never get to you.
Tired of swimming. So tired....
© bigD 2012
The other day I was thinking what it would be like to see Nick again. To wake up one day and realize this was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare. When I think about the prospect of seeing Nick again, holding him in my arms, looking into his eyes like I did on the day he was born....if I make myself really believe it, I think about how happy I would be, how everything would change, how nothing would ever bother me again...how I could go on with my life and feel happiness again! The feeling of this brief moment of joy suddenly illuminates the darkness that I live with every day and the stark contrast between that dark and light takes my breath away. It is as if the clouds break for just long enough to let me see my oppressors, the sadness and melancholy of my "new" world. It suffuses my every waking thought, my soul, my spirit, my being. I cannot shake it. I cannot make it stop. I don't know how to be happy without one of my children in my world. Not truly happy. My life is filled with constant reminders of the depth and breadth of this loss. It doesn't have to be something big, the smallest things can trigger an avalanche of sorrow and pain.
It seems like there are two options.... 100% grief or 100% denial. For me there is no space between. If there is a way to balance this I have not found it yet.
Random thoughts on random things:
Your shoes...size 13. I remember how much energy it would take for you to put them on every time we had to travel to the hospital. How happy you were to put them on when it was time to be discharged and go home.
Your wallet...filled with now useless items, yet I cry as I think of what each one meant for your life. Driver's license, just renewed after your diagnosis and your chemo had started. Bald head. Your eyes staring out at me with sadness? confusion? hope? You so rarely drove after you were diagnosed. Mostly we drove together, back and forth, back and forth, to Johns Hopkins, carving a path down that road. A road that still today brings pain, anxiety, panic, tears, and always sadness.
Your University of Maryland ID card....days of fun and carefree joy. I wish I had spent more time being with you then Nick. I am so sorry for all the time I didn't see you....precious moments and memories forever lost. I feel like those years are a huge gap in my mind....I thought I would have a lifetime of days with you my son, with your future family and children.
Your library card - your signature barely readable, so worn and well used. So many books and a thirst for knowledge...I am so proud of you my son and so saddened by the utter waste of such an intelligent and caring young man.
Every day I stare at the box that contains your ashes. I say to myself, "this is all that is left of my son. This is all that is left of the life that I carried under my heart for almost ten months. This is all I have of the genetic material that made you who you were and yet turned on you and killed you in the blink of an eye." I have a beautiful wooden box. They call it a "keepsake" box. That is where I am supposed to place a portion of your ashes before I bury the rest in the also, lovely, biodegradable and eco-friendly box I bought to put the rest of you in, whenever I am finally able to send you back to the earth. I don't know when I will be ready to do that. Right now I like to hold that box of ashes and remember the weight of you when you were a baby...a few months old...it feels like that. I can't let go of your "remains." Such a stupid concept anyway...remains.
I will never forget the day we went to the funeral home...to "see" you before they cremated you. Oh my sweet boy, the pain of that day is fresh in my mind. Your death still not real, even as I saw you lying there....even as I had to let them take your body and burn it, after all that you had been through, after all you had endured in the name of living and being cured...and yet you were betrayed by so many things and so many people. Our love wasn't enough. I could not protect you. Please forgive me my sweet son....I love you so much. Only when I see you again, will I feel true happiness.
"How beautiful the yesterday that stood over me like a rainbow.
I am alone. The past is past.
I see the future stretch all dark and barren as a rainy sea." ~ Alexander Smith
