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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Grieving My Son...It is a Lifetime Endeavor

Last night I had a personal reminder that the grief wound may heal but the scar is always there.  I am in the process of “downsizing” my possessions in order to make a move to another apartment.  In an attempt to consolidate my boxes of memories of my son I decided that it was time to dispose of his middle-school yearbooks.  I don’t look at them and there isn’t anyone who wants them so I felt it was time to let them go along with many other things I had been storing.  I picked up one of the yearbooks and was putting it into the trash pile when two photographs fell out.  These photos were taken in 2003, about a year before my son died and I had never seen them before.  I can only guess that he put them in the yearbook to get them out of the way but I’ll never know.  The photo’s showed him looking happy and joking around with whoever was taking the pictures.  The one photo was of him standing at the stove of his apartment cooking up something.  Robert loved to cook for his friends and considered himself something of a gourmet.  The other picture was of him and his girlfriend at the time and they both were making goofy faces. 

It was a surprise that after 7 years I found pictures I had never seen before.  It was also a moment where I felt the pangs of grief for the life that was taken from him at age 24 and the future we would have had together.  However I also was able to appreciate the journey I have traveled through my grief. In spite of the sadness I felt I was able to smile at the young man in the picture and the memories of a time when he was so happy and creative and living life to the fullest.  I am so proud to be his mother.  I love you, Robert.

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