I find that writing really helps me to sort our what I'm feeling so here goes. This one is going to be really raw to start with but having just read Paige's blog about losing her baby in her womb, I felt so much connection I had to reply. I know it's nothing like what I went through but her words resonate with me. As a parent you are so much in love with your children that losing them is just the most awful tearing process you can ever experience I think. I'm not trying to dismiss a father's love toward their child but I suspect it's different in the way that mothers feel a physical connection to their child always. Such terms as "cutting the umbilical cord" are quite accurate. You are supposed to do that when they are born, duh, but right after they are born there is the "bonding" experience. And after that, they are by your side or in your eyesight, earshot, or literally on top of you for the next year, before they can start walking away from you! You give them everything they need and try hard not to give them everything they want. Their joy is your joy. It's hard to separate the mother and child. So feeling that when they are inside of you and then starting to dream of what they will be like and what you will do with them is just the beginning. Having done nearly 18 years of living with that "child" who has turned into a young man and is literally ready to start their own life outside of your home is another thing.
I read somewhere that you must realize that your grief will last half as long as you've known that person. So it's been 7 years 5 months 131 days since I lost Taylor. It hurts just as bad as the first day. In fact, I feel like today I can finally let myself feel more of the emotion that I have kept trapped up inside of me since that time and the emotions are fresh. Guilt, remorse, fear, exhaustion physically and emotionally, desperation, emptiness...all there. What? Taylor is gone??? No!!!!!! This is not true, is it? It can't be true. He just left for college in NYC then decided to live there and has not been able to afford coming home since this blasted recession/depression hit our country. Yeah, that's it. Or, he moved out of the house and went exploring the rest of the world, trying out his wings and found he could fly and will catch up with us once he settles down again. Not gone forever, right? My only hope is that I WILL see him again, I WILL get to hold him again, I WILL hear his voice again, his laugh again, his smile again. There will be NO MORE SORROW or TEARS. The love has not gone out. There is still a string attached to Taylor wherever it is. I've been told that this is unhealthy and I need to break off the bond that holds me to him. I don't want to. It's all I have. Is it so wrong? I don't really care what happens to me here while I wait, I need to keep him close to my heart and if that means a bond then so it is.
Days like this are hard. I wish I could go back at the very least 8 yrs. maybe even more...when I saw it coming. Only God holds the keys to past, present, and future. So I pray to Him asking Him to fix what is broken til we all meet.
