Weaving a Blanket of Hope
It’s almost that time; November 1st. The fall leaves are turning and the jack o’ lanterns beam their shady faces in front of the Fred Meyer next to the fall mums.
I miss you.
This is my son. 13. A bright star that lit up everyone’s daily walk with his never-ending curiosity and inability to stay still.
Curious
Impulsive
Brilliant
Insatiable
Last year about this time we sat on the bench together at his younger brother’s football game. He had just spent time at an early Halloween party and my ex’s brother and wife were dropping him back to me. He snuggled up to my side, in his usual way. His new haircut rounding out his boyish face showing so much the signs of his leaving boyhood and becoming a young man. I was proud. This child was the one for whom I prayed. He was the gift given. Joy for the mourning of losing my first born.
Jamison and I could always talk. I teased him about his girlfriend and asked him if he was going to kiss her. He said, “Mom, really. I’ve got to work up to that and we’re not even at holding hands yet.”
“How long do you estimate it will take?” I asked, giggling and poking him in the side.
“Not sure.” he said, “approximately 6-8 months.”
He threw his head back in his carefree way and smirked a half smile. I laughed, so very close to my own heart. It was like our souls were woven together through time. People used to tell me that this child though an adopted was very much similar to me. They were right and over time he had become a refuge and friend in the emptiness of my marriage.
“Jamison, can you help me carry this?”
“Jamison want to come to the store with me?”
Middle spent most of his time with his Dad. Two peas in a pod I would always say. Middle loved sports and Dad loved Middle. That’s how it is sometimes. You don’t mean to, and truly you love them all equally, but each parent always holds a little more dearly to one child over the other. We are strange creatures. Despite our attempts to control; to adhere to the rules we write on our hearts, we never really be how we want to be, do exactly as we desire or keep from becoming what hope most to avoid. Looking back, twinges of guilt over my unconscious favoritism ping me.
Loneliness the maker of broken people – I don’t understand why he felt like he had to go.
For a number of months, I felt personally slighted that Jamison dared to leave me. Angry, screaming through tears as I drove somewhere – anywhere trying to escape my grief. Escaping is impossible; grief pours over you like a brazen sea. The waves come when they do. You stand cemented in knee deep water waiting, watching the horizon. Occasionally, forgetting going about your day, talking with friends, doing your work – until without warning, a wave washes over you like a tsunami pulling you under into suffocating darkness again. You struggle for days to clamor to your feet again only to be plunged under.
When Jamie died, I felt a strange fire. I knew that his death would change the world. I knew it would be the catalyst that would make me write. I knew it would bring me to the end of myself. I knew that I could not let
him pass through this dimension without allowing his soul to altering this world and through my release to alter yours. I have no idea what this means except that I am to open myself up to you; to share the depths of my heart with you – whatever may come.
Life finds us flayed open sometimes. Pain bursts from the depths of the universe of souls and we feel strangely connected to those who have suffered before and have suffering yet to come. We are a connection of strings; a blanket of bleeding hearts, knit together with common circumstances and tragedy. As pain our pain fades, our wounds scab over and healing takes hold we tighten to pull together and strengthen those still raw and oozing. Tragedy leaves us always as at the cross-road; dive into bitterness or release the weight and weave the blanket of hope.
I chose hope. You too, ok? Everyday. Over and over again. Don’t let your scars be for naught.
“….to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.”
Until next time.
All My Love,
Daun
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