Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Stranger

Yesterday as I was walking through the living room, I looked at a picture on the digital slide show of my sweet Jameson and I just went blank.   I didn't feel happy.  I didn't feel sad.  It was like seeing a picture that comes with a frame.  I stopped in my tracks and started at that picture and wondered who he is.  He used to be mine.  I used to know everything.  Every.little.thing. Every thing.  He is my son.  I spent three years with him as the center of my world.  He grew inside of my body.  I love him with every molecule of my being.  And yet.  And yet yesterday I looked at his picture and he felt like a stranger. 
The heart find news way to break, I guess.

How can I see one of our precious memories and not feel something?   How can the connection get lost, even momentarily?  I was so appalled at my inability to feel in that second that I've spent much of the past day looking back at pictures, remembering fun times, reading the old CaringBridge updates.  And I've completely flooded myself with pain.  It is somewhat of a relief; the nothingness is much scarier, much worse.

Only now I just can't breathe.  

The thing is, there is no way to keep this kind of thing from happening without stopping.  Unless I freeze myself here in this spot and never take another step, it will happen again.  Because every step I take is a step away from the past.  And he belongs to the past, at least on this side of eternity.

It is just so strange.  I feel like I've looked at all of the pictures of him much that I don't know if I'm remembering real memories or remembering pictures.  And then I search my being for memories that don't have Kodak attached to them to see if I actually even remember him alive.  Real. 

The memories are there.  They are just so distant.  Every once in a while, something will trigger a memory and the recall is so sweet as it washes over me.  Ah, I do remember him.  I haven't forgotten or lost it all.  And of course, there is no way I could lose it all, but even the little things are everything when there is nothing else left.   And sometimes I can't remember how he looked in his sleep.  Or how he felt on my hip.  Or what his sweet voice sounded like when he laughed.  And how can I not remember those things?  What kind of mother forgets that?

My heart is broken today because he feels so wholly lost to me.  Oh my God, my son is gone.

I don't know how to move today.  How to be.  I keep trying to think about all the promise in this life and the next and it just isn't working today.  I just want to freeze and be with him.  Even if just for today.  Can't I please have him back, just for today?

But there is no pause.  No rewind.  There is only this present shoving me forward. 

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