Sunday, February 10, 2013

Dreamtime


I'm in a department store, looking for something but I'm not quite sure what, when I hear a familiar voice behind me say "hello Mother".  My heart skips a beat and  rises to my throat and I turn around to see my son, my handsome boy that I buried in the cold, hard ground nine years ago, standing in front of me.  Very much alive.

In that instant, I know the blood has drained from my face and my body is shaking.  I can feel the warmth of wet tears on my cheeks as I stare at his face, aged a few years, but yes, this is most definitely my son!  Instantly my mind tells me, this is not possible and I feel my legs giving out from under me.  I cannot find my voice...  I want to hug him, to hold him, to kiss his  face and hear his voice.

He grabs me before my body crumples to the earth and holds me up. 

And then, and then, I awaken from my dream and my heart cries out in agony.  NO!  NO!  I want to go back, I want to hear his voice again, I didn't get to hug him! 

My irrational heart will occasionally direct my brain to do what I cannot in reality do: see my son in my dreams when I miss him the most.  It almost feels cruel, this dream time because always, it feels as though he as been ripped from my life once again and the ache in my heart that I am usually able to ignore now comes back with a vengence. 

It was nine years ago, probably to the day, that I saw him last.  It was nine years ago that he left this world.   

There is a part of we humans that cannot accept the absolute and total finality of death.  It is so cruel, so heartbreaking to those of us left behind.  The day my son died a part of me died with him and I have not been able to recover that part of me.  It's just gone.  I am better, but I am by no means whole.  And still I cry for the life ended too soon and too young with so much living yet to do.  I wanted the world to stop as my world had, but it didn't.  The world kept spinning around the sun and humankind kept living.  I had to keep living, too, but sometimes I feel guilty about that.  It should have been me that died first, not my son. 

I am at peace now with his passing a great majority of the time.  It took awhile to get  to this place emotionally.  But now and then, on his birthday, on his deathday, I remember and I cry because I loved him so very, very much and was blessed to have had him in my life and to have been his mother.

I miss you, Bud. 

In loving memory of:
Sgt. Jeremy R. Smith, US Army Reserves
November 1981 - February 2004

1 comment:

Carol said...

Your words. I feel pain in my heart as I read them. How does a mind reconcile the idea of death? I have no idea. I send you hugs.