Counting Again...
I just had spent a wonderful day with my son celebrating his 13th Birthday.... A day to revel in when you are young.... the day that you "officially graduate' into a teenager. Now he has reached the same status as his brothers. As I celebrate with my precious D in his new stage.... I cannot help but remember the timeline before me. This day- a birthday- always starts the clock over for me. 10 days until Bradey's Birthday. He will be 8 on April 23rd.
I am so torn today, for April always brings the rain for me.
A cold rain, not the gentle kind that mists the leaves into a shinning remnant or causes pollen to drip like honey from the tree limbs....
no, this rain hits hard and fast.
This rain brings Cold Shivers and Quivering lips.
Though it may quiet the world around, by shrouding me in the clouds of grief...
The screams in my head and the ripping of my torn heart are still deafening.
No one will see it-- no one will hear it besides my sisters in loss- who are reaching for the ray of sunshine after their "april rain" passes.
April, a month of new beginnings has a shadow of pain that always dulls the day.
7 years -- 11 mo -- 22 days and counting back. Bradey was safely alive and well at the start of that clock. He was sucking his thumb and growing strong- all was well. Safe in mommy-- listening to the outside world.
We were busy preparing for his arrival. We had a wonderful party for Derek and April 13, 2007. He turned 5-- that year was a big milestone for him as well. I remember his adorable pink smile as he got his presents-- a house full of party guests, while mama brought the cake for my sweet 'D' to blow out the candles. At the close of the day we talked about the real present was that his brother was coming anytime-- it would be special to have a brother for his birthday! D beamed with pleasure at the thought-- he would finally be an 'older' brother and not the baby anymore. We didn't know the path of darkness we would be required to walk. Or how that little 5 year old would not know the joy of teaching that baby or how death stings and bends reality.
As I started April this year, I got news of my long-time friend that had experienced the extreme loss of her daughter in a terrible accident. I am wrecked with deep sick grief as I know what journey awaits her in the following years. I pray for a covering while she and her family find the path to move along... I beg God for His merciful peace to be with her on this dark and lonely road. It is April, again with that cold rain. My soul mirrors the weather outside as we teeter tauter between sun and showers in this month of spring. My heart leaps to see the sun and tries to capture hope from every sight of a white butterfly or twittering bird, but then just as quickly I drop into a world of cloudy gray where the only feeling is a gapping hole that screams with the painful suction of that gripping lonely wind of grief. Every year I try to weave a pattern of silken stiches to cover the wound in my heart, but when April rips open the door again-- that wind leaves my silken strands of hope dancing in the gap like the stinging tendrils of a jelly fish.
Last year, the Real World mirrored my reeling mind when I got flowers from my ex on the birthday of our dead son, only to be served custody papers the next day to take the other 3 children from me. What could be more cruel.
I am desperate to see what this year will bring.... what horror or what peace?
Today I try to focus on the good. Where is it??????
God, I need your Presence.... I need to feel your Grace.
I know He is there-- but I can not always feel the warmth.
I kneel, asking, pleading for the storm to subside.... what will you have me do???
7 years-- 11 mo--22days and counting.... I still breath in air, and exhale tears. I still feel the gap in my heart, at my table, and on my picture wall. I still want to wear a sign that says -- I have 4 sons... I still look twice when I see a little boy his age with blond curls. I still have heavy arms when I hear a baby cry. I still remember his life that bloomed with great promise and think of memories that were hopes of reality-- but are truly shadows of dust in a shallow grave. I still remember his hellish death and feel with great intensity the gap in my Heart and Soul. I still beg to see him in my dreams-- as eternity is too long for a mother to wait. I still close my eyes and see his smile-- in the white butterflies and sparkles of a sun filled day. I still count every day lost... and remember every day I had- though his voice I can not hear, I feel his touch on the inside of my shredded heart, like I felt it on my ribs before his birth. There will never be a day that passes, where the timeline of April escapes me. In nature we travel from death of winter to the life of spring. In Grief we travel from the heart of life-- to the death of what we knew to be-- then must rise to the existence of what is left and live again.
I am in the countdown. The 10 heaviest days of my year.
I am tender at this time
I am broken all year long
I am whole heartedly grieving for my beautiful Bradey Boy-- he lives.... just not HERE.
