I used to pour over his pictures when I got home from the hospital in May after he died. Every day, and every night, just looking...looking, looking. Trying to remember every detail. Every sound. Every outfit and every facial expression. Trying to remember which nurse was on duty that day and what was going on with your health. I was terrified that I would forget something. Anything. But as time wore on, I looked less and less. And I've not forgotten one thing. I framed my favorite pictures around the house, and they've migrated to different spots as time has worn on. Some in the school room, next to your minion flowers someone brought to your funeral. Some atop the piano in the boys' playroom, with a Superman figurine standing over one and minion toys on either side. A picture of you smiling in my arms on my nightstand. And a picture on the ledge by the bathtub, where Daddy put it one night I couldn't stop crying...He put it on the ledge with your gray candle lit and drew me a bubble bath so I could just look at your picture and feel close to you while I wept. Your pictures are everywhere. I've gotten used to them now, and don't stop to stare quite as long as I used to. Maybe once or twice a week, I'll stop and just zone out, and try to go back to that very moment in time and space that that very picture was taken....
But tonight I wanted a happy picture. A sweet picture. One with you awake and looking at the camera with a sweet expression. The kind of expression you gave me and your Daddy and brothers a lot. You didn't smile a lot, but when you did, it was magic. No one could get you to smile quite like your brothers could. Every time they'd talk in their baby voices to you, you'd crane your neck to find them and your face would just light up. It was my favorite thing. But those moments I rarely could catch on camera, because they were fleeting. Gone, just like that. Magic. Just magic. God, I miss those moments more than ever. What I wouldn't give to have pictures by the scads of moments like those. But, I don't. Part of me is glad, because I know I wasn't looking at you from behind the lense of a camera or phone, but now, with only physical things left to hold on to, those missing pictures leave a huge gaping hole.
Oh, I have thousands of pictures. I'm not sure quite how many. I took photos on my phone and camera, and every single day, I'd snap picture after picture of you. The majority of your photos are of you sleeping. You always looked so beautiful when you were sleeping. You slept a whole heck of a lot. And, I have a lot of ones with you awake too. But that's where it gets hard. Now that you're gone, I look back and see your pictures through different eyes. I know the truth about you and your health. I was there every moment you went through each battle and hurdle. Each surgery and setback. I saw it all. It was excrutiating. We so longed for you to be healthy and happy and to get well. Looking back now, I see that you were always sick. Maybe not ill with your kidney issues, but with your brain issues. In the pictures now, I can tell. And it kills me. I think that's the hardest part of it all....realizing now that you were never okay and I never knew. And then slowly, day by day, month by month, discovering the cold hard truth. It was like a thousand rugs were ripped out from under me, one by one, over and over. Hope after hope, dream after dream, shattered onto the floor. Part of me feels like an idiot. But part of me is glad I didn't know for so long. That I was in ignorant bliss loving you for 2 and 1/2 months before it all came crashing down. I still loved you just as much, but I was just sad. So devastatingly sad.
So, I've still not found the picture. I keep thinking I'll find a hidden treasure trove of sweet, precious and happy pictures. But it's more like one picture out of a 100 might not absolutely crush me. What started out as a quick little jot over to iPhoto turned into an all-out gut-wrenching sob fest, with me laying on the bathroom floor....then clinging to your socks and shirts and hats in your closet as I cried some more. As I cried in your room, I tried to stifle the sounds as to not wake your brothers just across the hall from your nursery. The pain is unbelievable. Like my heart wants to burst outta my chest mixed w/ hyperventilating and uncontrollable sobbing. I wonder how many gallons of tears I have cried by now. I really do. It is a strange sensation to feel tears flow so fluidly down my face. It almost feels like a hose is just sitting on my face and is on full blast just running down. It's mind-boggling...I hate the fact that I'm in a constant battle now. The battle to remember those sweet memories of you, always being overshadowed and beaten down by the heartbreaking ones. The reality of how very hard your little life was. It makes me feel terrible that I couldn't protect you from such a hard life. That I couldn't make it better for you. But then part of me wonders if you really were aware of how bad it was...maybe that's why God allowed your brain to be the way it was, so you didn't realize. And maybe that's why you were so calm. All I know is, you were amazing. You changed my life from the moment I met you. I still cringe when I hear, "Well, as long as they're healthy!!".....No, not really. You weren't, and you were perfect. Your life was special and it mattered. And you seemed so calm and at peace, even in the midst of everything.... You changed my life. I pray I can continue to trust, and fight this battle that now wages on with me. I never knew how impossible it would be. It's debilitating sometimes. Especially in the beginning....less now, but when it hits, it seems even more painful and worse than ever before.... Those are the days I wish I could just hold you again, because to hold you was to surrender and let go of all anguish and fear. It was to be still and just be. To be completely present in that given moment like nothing else in the world mattered. Those were the best moments of my life.
I'm so grateful God gave you to me. In the end, He took you back, but not before changing me forever. It was a high price, losing you, but one I want to do right by. I will continue to fight for you and for me, and for your brothers and Daddy. The other choices on the table would be to waste the gift. The gift that was you. Your life mattered, and matters, too much for me to choose that. I keep remembering that Steve Prefontaine quote that says, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift."....So I give my best, even though my best is not pretty. It's a broken best. But that's all I have now. So I offer up my brokenness. I think God's okay with that.
I love you, my sweet littlest boy. I will miss you forever. But I'll keep fighting for you <3. xoxo, Mommy <3
Honest, forthright, beautiful and gut wrenching all at the same time. I miss Gray so much. I miss him more for your sake. Very powerful words you've shared. I love you.
ReplyDeleteI love you too, sweet cousin. It's just hard missing him so much.
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