Tomorrow is June the 2nd. It makes one month from the 7th anniversary date of my son’s death.    I had all intentions of avoiding the cycle I have seen myself enter each year around this time.   Now at year seven, I am accepting that resisting is futile.

I continue to have random grief attacks.  I saw a tall young man with his family out and about the other day and cried all the way home.  It is not the kind of weeping that requires me to pull over but it makes me slow down.  I keep boxes of tissues in the car anyway but mainly because of this.

There is that feeling too that comes which I can only describe as wanting to burst and not with joy.  I find myself inhaling and not able to exhale.  I tense up and hold  my breath for some reason until somehow my body’s functions forces me to exhale.

I shake my head “no” a lot.  I address  the empty room or the horizon or the beautiful Spring plants.  I feel like I am telling them, no, I won’t give in right now.  Don’t look at me that way, I have things to do.    If I give in I may not be able to climb back out.

Yet, I do climb out.    Not always able to be jovial or cordial even, but out, and doing the things that “have to be done.”    I shake my head, no, at them too.

I don’t think the grief weighs less, I have just gotten accustomed to the weight.     The sharp edge of yearning never dulls.    It never dulls.   Maybe that is part of that feeling like I am going to burst.

I have perfected the self talk for almost all occasions.  I say almost all because those occasions still occur that dismantle all my efforts very quickly.    Yet even those occasions give me the excuse to unleash a little of the tamped down anger I still harbor, so those times are not without use.

Death.  I’ve known about it from such a young age.  Perhaps there are cultures who don’t dread it, or fear it, but that is not a part of the culture I grew up in.  I don’t  know what to do with it anymore.

I have been able to separate it from those who are with me now in this life.  I think my son would be annoyed if I allowed the times I have with his sister or his dad to be diminished and not enjoyed to the best of my ability.  There were times when I could not avoid it but I try to be in the moment when I am with them and savor everything about the time with them.

Lots of broken things continue to function on some level.    Some days I am better at functioning than others.

He will always be my son.  I will always be his mother, living or dead that is what we are. The time I give him now, in my grief is not wasted.  Were he still here I would be giving him all the time he asked for.   I can’t say no concerning my time to my children.   He is not claiming more than he deserves, or more than he is worth and it is not wasted, it is not wasted because even in that grief there is love.   Love is truly that energy that can never be created nor destroyed – only transferred.

I whisper it to the air every day.  I wake with it and go to sleep with it amid all those thoughts and hopes for those I love.

Miss you so much sweetheart.   Love you forever.