This wonderful friend of mine is sad, with haunted eyes. She lost a child and life will never be the same. Would she want it any different?
Let me explain. Of course I assume she wants it all back, the companionship of her family and the joy of his presence. She wants the sweetness of every good memory and she would maybe even take back the bad times, the hard times and the sadness just to have him, just to have the chance for things to get better, to allow time to swing the pendulum back to the good. If life were to be happy would that mean she didn't care, didn't miss him? Would that mean that he was really gone....if she weren't sad?
Does her heart cry out to God, "Why do you hate me?! How could you do this to me."
"Why couldn't I love him enough? Enough to keep him safe?" Or maybe "Enough to give me peace, knowing that no matter what, he knew I loved him."
Perhaps she walks alone in a world full of people who have no idea of the heartache and sorrow that she drags behind her like a Grand Canyon suitcase. She smiles at those she meets but it's always there, a chasm big enough to see from space. It's full of memories of the tiny boy who first held her heart and then her finger and then her every waking moment. Of the boy that held her breath as he rode his bike like he would never crash when she knew better. It's full of his crazy smile and great love of the outdoors and all the heartache when he struggled with math and choices and friends and girls and more choices. It's full of every time she wished she could take away the pain and agony and every time she wished you could still spank him even when he's taller than you.
And maybe sometimes, for just a moment, when she opens her eyes in the morning after a beautiful dream she can still feel him there and she forgets that he's gone and the world feels right again.
I see you, my friend. I see that Canyon behind you. Some days it's hovering in the distance and some days it's under your feet. Some days you fear a misstep will allow it to swallow you. And I don't know what to say- it's a private canyon and sacred. I don't share it, I don't know it like you do. I don't really understand and I don't know how to tell you I can feel it and see it around you. And sometimes I'm afraid that if I say it aloud you'll think I'm crazy. But please know that you aren't really alone, the walls of pain and darkness that divide us from each other cloud our minds and we believe the lies that no one cares, no one understands. I may not fully understand but by dang, I sure want to try.
*i woke this morning with one particular friend on my mind and could not go back to sleep but as I contemplated on what I wished I could say to her I realized that the list of friends, family, loved ones and acquaintances who also carry this same burden of sorrow and worry for the living and the dead is too long to even comprehend. My love goes out to you in your own sorrow that the eye can't see.
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