I promised myself I would be strong today. But I wasn’t.
I began my day on a positive note. I wrote my son a nice birthday message and then posted an announcement of my niece’s wedding. I then met my friends at a sports bar and we toasted my son with a glass of Irish whiskey, each. There was so much laughter, so many frivolous jokes, so many of them at each other’s expense.
And I thought
“I’ve got this. It’s not really a big deal. Really. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
But it wasn’t.
What they don’t tell you when you’re growing up, or in high school, or college, or when you’re being mentored in military service is exactly what to do when you lose someone you love. Especially when that person is your child—someone you thought who would outlive you. Someone who was supposed to bury you and weep at your funeral.
And suddenly you find yourself at his memorial service weeping for him as you are asked to say something about your child to a myriad of other people, each of whom was a friend or a lover, many of whom you don’t know. You’re expected to tell them and your friends, many of whom didn’t know him, about the experience of raising this person from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. You want to say wonderful things and to explain to the world what a wonderful person he was, but deep inside you’re reminded of the terrible truth, that you had him for only a brief time.
You want to tell them it wasn’t long enough. You feel compelled to say to those who will listen that you wanted to hold on to him for just one more moment and to understand just a little better who he was and where he was really planning to take his life. Because you honestly don’t know. You want to tell those who will listen about the plans you had for him before life got in the way and hijacked everything you wanted for him.
But you can’t because you can’t really put it into words because the plans you had for him were so big words fail you so, instead, you say and write impotent things like how he loved everyone he ever met, and how he would give you the shirt off his back. And what you really want is just to show him to everyone and let them see the great kid he really was before all the drugs and alcohol and life got in the way. You want to shun the words and you curse them as your fingers type them, yet still you write.
A fruitless, desperate attempt to quiet the voices who whisper to you that no matter what you say or write that he’s gone and nothing can change that. And no matter how much you write or talk or drink, you realize that fate has hammered this stake in the ground and you are powerless to convince her to remove it and turn back the clock.
“Turn it back.” you cry. “Make it not so.” you plead. Over and over you attempt to bargain with fate, with God—all to no avail.
And in the end you accept the truth one more time, and you say to your friend
“I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
But you’re not.
I promised myself I would be strong today. But I wasn’t.
