last name Photoshopped out for privacy reasons
"Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love. It can't take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death."
~Unknown~
Happy 22nd Birthday, Joshua!
I have a hard time believing you'd be 22 today, if you were still here on earth. I hope you're having a great day with your Heavenly family and your Heavenly Father.
I know that you already know this, but things are so much better here on mortal ground than they were this time last year. That's despite the fact that your littlest sister is laying on the floor, tossing a ball into the air and just watching it come straight back down, right at her face. Luckily, for her, it hasn't hit her in the nose yet. I told her to knock it off or she'd regret it and she just laughed. It seems that the daring, rebellious spirit runs through all of my children!
Watching Gaby play, especially the times she plays with her guitar reminds me so much of you. She has such a love of music, just like you did!
Two years, three months and 10 days seems like such a short time to get to know someone, especially when that someone was the child who grew in my womb and took me on the first step of the journey from teenager to mother.
I've not felt your embrace, or gazed into those gorgeous brown eyes of yours for close to twenty years now...but hardly a day goes by when I don't feel your presence near me almost all the time. Maybe it was because your time here on earth with me left such a huge impression that the energy from your life still resonates around me. Perhaps that's more of a scientific explanation for it, but I prefer to believe that your spirit still lingers nearby.
I haven't dreamed about you again, since last year. It took some time for the dream to sink in and for me to fully feel the impact of the words exchanged between you and I that night, but I have...I finally have. Since that sleepy morning, when I sat staring at the words I'd written immediately after waking from that dream, I've come to a point in my life where I have, once and for all decided to stop killing myself and start living...really start living!
I still have moments where the memory of your death feels like a punch in the gut and takes my breath away. Being that I didn't really let the grief process run it's course, and instead, I ate and ate and ate to insulate myself from the pain of your loss, sometimes the fresh pain is like having daggers if ice plunged deep into my heart and the most tender places in my soul...the places of a mothers soul where she tends her garden of sorrows. During those times I take a deep breath and become still and allow myself to feel the pain and let the grief wash over me anew. I submit to ache of missing you and let my tears rain down on those blossoms of sorrow and agony.
After being exhausted by the tears and longing to see you again, I let myself journey to the other side of this mother's soul...the place where I tend my garden of happy, fun, lovely and cherished memories. I sit in this springtime garden of my soul and let the warmth of all the wonderful memories of you - your smile, your laugh, your love for your little brother and sister, embrace my soul and warm my heart. I feel the petals of healing and peace blossom inside of me like a field of awakening poppies; opening their faces to the sun.
So, I'll allow myself these showers of grief and heartache and hours where I wallow in the misery of missing you because I know they'll give way to the warm breezes of hope and healing.
Beautiful beautiful boy of mine, on what would be your 22nd birthday I want you to know that I miss your smile so very much...
...but I love you so much more. Death can never take away the precious gift your place in my life gave me. Maybe through finally grieving your death, I am starting to learn how to live. It's in your memory that I begin to take the steps towards living the life I was meant to live.
"The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live."
~Joan Borysenko~
Mommy
