Some mom's look at their children as they grow up and exclaim "I can't believe it's already been 8 months!" (or whatever the number is). I know, because I read those very exclamations on facebook quite often.
Luke isn't here, but I feel like I could make that exclamation too. I can't believe it's already been eight months! I think I feel that way for, obviously, different reasons. I feel like 8 months sounds like a long time, but to me it doesn't feel like a long time.
Perhaps in the eyes of the rest of the world it's something that happened a long time ago, but for me it still feels as fresh as ever. As I write these words I realize that I've probably written something very similar before and I might each month and each year forever -I can't believe it's been 1 year...5 years...31 years... I think the time will continue on and I will always be amazed at how it plummets on, pressing forward from the day that I gave birth to Luke. I think I will always have that day as a marker, held in time, as a reference. For me, I wonder if and think that perhaps it might always feel like it is something that just happened even though that's not the case. I like to think that though. I like to think that it's not something to just be forgotten and not simply become a past event. For others it might just become that or even seem like that especially when I tell them how long ago Luke was born. Yet to me it will never be just a past event, but a tragically beautiful part of my life that I will always carry with me.
Luke, I still think about you every day. I wonder what your life is like, right now, in heaven. I can't wait until the day that we can be together and you can tell me all about it. Love, your mommy.
I don't think I've ever shared this with you, but your thoughts reminded me. When I studied grief in families while at BYU, they give you some general guidelines of how stressful different kinds of loss are and how long someone should grieve. They had a time for everything, except for death of a child. There is no guideline for how long someone should grieve because people just don't get over the death of a child. It's too much. It is the number 1 most traumatic thing that could happen in a person's life. So it's completely normal for 8 months, 5 years, 31 years to still feel the loss of Luke. So don't ever, ever feel bad about mourning the loss of your beautiful son no matter how long its been. I still pray for you because even though I haven't gone through this I can understand that this is still hard for you. I love you mucho.
ReplyDeleteThank you... and once again you brought tears.
ReplyDeleteI feel every mother has the same feeling about the birth of their children - and for you the birth and death of Luke. I can still remember the births of both my children vividly, and it helps me to remember who they are (though that's not that difficult right now, since they're both angels). They feel like yesterday, even if one of them was over 1 1/2 years ago. I pray you can keep that feeling - I know I want to keep mine. It gives a good stance for a perspective on life.