The Book of Me

This is how I want to remember you... us! Happy, silly, in costume, playing with your sister and me being your Mom.  The fog has returned My focus and clarity gone Grief has settled in again I am tired; my body slumps and is too heavy to carry. I want to sleep. We are now in the last days before Xavier died. He was alive this day last year. But on May 13 there is no living memory of him last year, aside from a couple hours of unconscious sleep before he took his last breath beside me. I held my breath with him waiting for the next and it didn’t come. We had a great few days this week last year and he was full of laughs, full of life! We saw a glimpse of this again in ICU. Then he deteriorated.  The zipper that keeps us all inside Earth started to split. His connection to this plane was ripping apart. When the zipper fully detached he was opened to eternity. This week has been challenging, constantly fighting back memories of this time last year. Painf...

On Friday, another family lost their son. Not yet 20, this young man's life tragically ended in a car crash. His parents now thrown into this nightmare of losing their child. I wish I didn't know what it felt like. I wish they didn't either. I know nothing about this family, their boy or their lives yet I suddenly feel connected to them through pain. Just as I did when I thought of all the moms from Humboldt. It takes only a second for me to start crying when I think of that poor mother. I cry for the both of us. I cry because I know the depth of heartache she has been thrust into. And I am still learning. Learning how to cope with a never ending longing to see, feel, touch, kiss, hug or talk to your child. I am still learning how to manage the ongoing phases of grief in this non-linear process. My heart bleeds for this mother, who like me, will have moments of peace and understanding and then moments of deep despair. I don't want anyone to have to feel this way...