Why does a young man who is just beginning his life and who is looking forward to the birth of his first child die, while a 53 year old woman who has lived her life and raised her children, lives?
When will she stop imaging her boy calling her on the phone and happily announcing that it is time. And the woman will say that she is on the way, and then she will pace the halls of the hospital until her boy walks up to her, smiles his wry smile, wraps his huge arms around her neck and announces that he has a son and that his son is fine and his wife is fine as well?
Will the woman ever be able to say the name of her grandson (that is the same name as her son) out loud?
How long will the woman continue to allow her spirit to enter the body of her son? How long will she silently float inside the body of her son, searching his heart and lungs, calmly watching them contracting and expanding and then watching them stop. Watching as the blood in his veins stops flowing. Watching as his veins and arteries begin to collapse. Watching him fall to the ground. Calmly and silently watching over him as he lies dead on the floor hour after hour. How long?
How long will the woman continue to watch her spirit sitting on the floor next to her dead son, silently cradling his beautiful body and stroking his beautiful face? Rocking him and holding him and stroking him and reassuring him that it will be OK, but all the while knowing that it won't be, but desperately needing to comfort him anyway?
How long will the woman see her son being cremated each time she opens the door to the wood stove and adds wood to the fire in the house?
How long will the woman continue to turn away so as to not see people slowly dying even in make-believe TV shows, because it reminds her of her boy and her inability to protect him and the heartbreak of it all and the senselessness of it all?
How long will it be before she no longer looks away at the sight of babies, toddlers, boys, teenagers, young men, old men?
How long will the woman dwell on the fact that life is going on all around her? Only it feels like a make-believe world that does not make sense without her boy.
How can the woman appear to the world as a normally functioning woman, when in reality she feels anything but normal?
She wishes she believed in God. Maybe God could comfort her. At the very least maybe God could be the object of the rage she feels but has nowhere to put.
How deep can pain be? Is this it? Is there more?
Is there?
About two months ago I received an email that was addressed to both me and Sean's wife Jessica. The sender was supposedly my son. When I saw his name my stomach dropped, and I clicked on the email. It was a spam email. No text - just a link that I didn't open.
ReplyDeleteAnd so it goes.