Instead I'm sitting at my desk staring across a space of about four feet at the pictures covering my husband's work space. One picture in particular, Damon. He was about a month old, wrapped in a blue baby blanket, fast asleep. I was holding him in this picture. You can't see me but I remember. I remember.
I remember feeling like I could protect him. I remember believing in a future.
I often am overwhelmed and frustrated by a world that refuses to acknowledge pain and most ardently refuses the reality of death. It this world of happy smiling people I am a spector floating in blacks, whites, and greys while everyone else can see color. It is a lonely, lonely way to live. There is a chasm between me and you... always.
While I am certain that people in general could and should (there's that word I hate but there is no way around it) pull their heads out of themselves and insist on an awareness of the suffering and reality around them I also understand the refusal. Living in this place where nothing is solid, where I know that my son's, my husband's lives could me yanked out of my grasp at any moment, where I know that I can not protect my children is... there is no word for what it is. There is no air. There is no ground. There is nothing to orient myself, no way to get a grip. It's horrible.
The death of a child steals a child's life. It also steals security. It steals comfort. It steals certainty.
I am sure of almost nothing...
Until next time.
