Dear Son,

I don’t write here as often as I used to though I talk to you all the time. I remember when people told me in an attempt to comfort  that “you would always be with me ” after you died. I was polite, I told them thanks and I walked away thinking “what are they talking about?” It was an assumption on their part because the people who said it had not experienced a loss like this. It sounded nice and was something I think they hoped would be true.

I know they didn’t know what they were talking about. I know they hoped it could be true. They don’t know the half of it. I talk to you all the time. I think of you as being privy to all my thoughts and all my activities.  As the fog cleared that first year you became clearer and clearer in my mind.

Just yesterday I had a memory of an event that I could swear you were present for. I remember your facial expression and what you said but then I looked at the calendar I realized it was after your accident.

I remember your facial expression in situations where in times before we would look at each other and exchange that nonverbal cue. Or I would look at you and you would be looking away .your body language stating emphatically that it was time to go, move on. I remember things you have said and they apply to the current situation and sometimes more poignantly than before.

I see you in your sister and your dad. I see you in things I do and maybe it is because in some ways I want to model myself after some of those things, those things that I think of as your  better attributes.

I thank you and your sister for allowing me to be your mother. It has been a great privilege. I can’t adequately explain that. There are no words. When the florist industry hit upon the idea of Mother’s Day they hit a gold mine. Thank you for never giving Mother’s Day any credence. Your attitudes about what is and what is not important as dictated by society has held true.

“Mother’s Day” is a Sunday like many other Sunday’s. You and your sister are the only gift and accolade I need. You both in your lives and your attitudes are my bouquet.

I think that this  “holiday” is harder for your dad than for me. He is so fierce about his love for me at times.
We locked in this grief together try so hard not to allow our personal grief to make the other’s grief any harder.

If you do witness anything then you know I have these terrible attacks of yearning. It is a huge whole body contraction. No, it is worse than that. The mind and body and world all contract for a terrible moment , contorts and sometimes I wonder if I will breath again when it comes. I cannot predict when or why it comes when it does. I function so much of the time feeling that you are right beside me. I think it is when I want to touch you, hug you, hear your voice when that yearning sees an opening to hit.

I know, I don’t need to go on. I know that you and I in the short time we had together on this earth said all the words necessary, did all the necessary things to express the deep love and appreciation we had for each other.

That will have to do for now.
That will have to do.    You know I love you.  I know you love me.  That will have to do.

Forever,

Mom