Trying to Remember...

Dear Gavin,

I miss you.  I miss you.  I miss you.  Desperately.  The end.

Okay, that's not really the end - but it sums up how I've been feeling.

Life is obviously not the same at all with you gone.  But I'm trying hard, Bugaboo.  I'm trying to remember how to live - even when it seems unreasonable to move on without you.

Every day I wake up and remind myself, literally, that Brian needs me... and that I don't have any right, regardless of how I'm feeling, to let anything get in the way of being his Mommy.  That can't change - even though life changed.  I know you would want me to be the same Mommy I was before... and I'm trying hard to do that.  For Brian... AND for Hope.

Brian has been busy this week!  He has school (his last week in this school with Miss Laura!) in the morning and then a mini-gymnastics camp all afternoon.  He was so excited the first day.  I wasn't! The camp is from 1-4, which is a long time!  And parents aren't allowed to stay.  What's up with that?

But as I prepared to leave on that first day, Brian turned and gave me the "thumbs up" sign.  He's always making me laugh - just like he made you laugh.  I'm trying to remember to keep laughing... even when laughing seems unreasonable.

I have no idea what he does there.  Can't get much out of him except "I had fun!"  But each day he proclaims, "Mama - I'm so excited to go back to gymnastics again!"

Gavin, I know he's missing you too.  This was what he said to me the other night when I laid with him at bedtime:

"Mama?  I can't wait until Christmas.  I hope Santa brings me LOTS of toys!!  He won't bring toys for Gavin, though, because he died.  It's not fair that he died, Mama.  I loved him.  He was my friend.  Maybe Santa will bring toys to Gavin up in Heaven.

Mama?  I think Hope's gonna be cool."

I'm trying to remember how to dance through life, Gavin.  But that part has been a challenge.  There hasn't been a "nightly dance party" in the kitchen since you died.  Not one.  Every time I think about dancing, I remember this...

One day - I can't promise when - my goal is to get back to this...

I'm trying to remember how to put one foot in front of the other.  I'm trying to remember how to live in this house without you.  I'm trying to remember a lot...

...but I'll never forget every detail of you.

Love, Mommy.

"Held"

Two months is too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing
To think that providence
Would take a child from his mother
While she prays, is appalling
Who told us we'd be rescued
What has changed and
Why should we be saved from nightmares
Were asking why this happens to us
Who have died to live, it's unfair
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held
If hope if born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior
This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held.