Dear Son,

I am typing on your wireless keyboard.  It is tough for your dad and I to use any of your things.  I feel like I am borrowing them.  I guess we are, all of us just borrowing things after all.  Some of them require a users fee, we call it a “price”.  In the end we use it and leave it behind.

Sunday was your dad’s 62nd birthday.  I would have called  and reminded you as I usually did, even though you usually remembered without me.  It was a stupid ritual.  I know he was remembering about his 60th and our surprise party for him.  He was  annoyed and sad that day, which ended so well with the group at the restaurant downtown.   Your sister took some great pictures that night.

Spring has come early.  One Japanese Maple is entirely in leaf and the other is following quickly.  The violets have made a purple carpet in the that space enclosed by the monkey grass border.  I hope we don’t get a freeze because there is no way to protect the big Maples.

I am staying busy.   It is not easy some days.  I still loose some days.  Life has a way of urging you on, though I am not always sure towards what.  It is tough for some reason for your dad and I to talk about you.  I think it is part of the cycle, part of the attempt at some sort of resolution, but I think that is the wrong word.  I don’t think we know what is possible and therefore it is impossible  to focus on what might help.  Help is the wrong word too.  That is another problem, there are no good words for expressing what we want except we want time to reverse itself and for us to go back to July and change the events that brought us here. We want you.

That is really what it comes down to every day sweetheart.  We dance around doing all the “things” excepted of us, and the things we choose to fill up the time.  We choose things to try and divert our attention from our pain.   Our success is limited.

I called the mother of your friend that died just recently.  I heard my pain in her voice.  I heard our mutual longing.   I pulled myself up and I talked to her like I was some sort of expert about this path.  I reassured her that she was allowed to feel whatever she needed and to do whatever seemed best.  Well meaning friends had told her not to visit the grave every day.  It is there near their house, she can see the graveyard from their yard.  I told her to go.  Go every day is she needed to, until she doesn’t need to anymore.  Or if she does the rest of her life, whose business it it but hers?  Why do people who have never experienced such a loss think they know the right way for parents, spouses and siblings to behave in this situation?

This awful situation.  Unthinkable.  Unbelievable.  Unnatural in the order we think should occur.  It is so hard.   Your not being here weighs so heavily on my day.  For your dad and I it is still the last thought on our mind before we go to sleep and the first when we wake.   We took your living for granted.  We all take the living for granted.

My African Violets have found the window in the kitchen to be a good place to live. Saturday,  I had to split a couple and repot them.  The repotted ones look a bit wilted still.  I am hoping they will perk up.  When I saw them with their leaves a bit drooped, their blooms fading I thought – there is another analogy for my life.   Comfortably root bound I have been repotted.  But that is not enough.  The plant will recover.  I think I will remain a bit wilted, not that anyone can see unless they  know me well.  I am good at wearing my mask.  So is your dad.  We can put on a good show.

We talk and laugh when we are out with others.  It is at home where the silences attend us.  We are afraid that if we open the door of our grief in each other’s presence it will not be able to be contained.   It takes a lot of strength to keep it in.

It is your fault.  You are so lovable, so personable, so easy to be with.  You are ours and cherished from the very moment you entered our life.   Your poor sister has to take the brunt of all that attention now.   I try to reign it in, so as not to overwhelm her.

So here I am again, saying basically the same things I have said before.  Wanting so badly to believe that you are able somehow to receive the love I send to you.  The world is not an easy place to be without you and I am not looking for a substitute because none exists.

I am making teapots in my pottery class.  You would be proud of me.   I miss your encouragement.

I love you sweet pea.  As sappy as it sounds I carry you in my heart.

Love

Forever,

Mom