For Thor - 98 - Year 3 and VitaminSea

Three years ago today my life changed forever, Thor, and yours abruptly ended. Your truck careened out of control on a stretch of road you had traversed over the years by foot, bike, skateboard, and scooter. Maybe it was the familiarity with that curve that emboldened you further to take it too fast, too push it a little harder. No matter why you kicked it into high gear or what you were thinking at the time the end result is that your life came to a sudden gut-wrenching halt in a pile of twisted steel and tree limbs on New Years Eve 2015.

I can hardly get my head around this fact…that it's been three years since I've heard your voice or seen your face. Three full years have passed since you walked in the front door to join us for dinner. Much has changed in this time, Thor. Your brothers grow into wise and kind young men. Chaz will celebrate his 20th birthday in a few weeks, an age you never saw. But it's strange because even though he's now the oldest, he's still the middle child. It seems birth order psychology is persistent, even when a sibling is no longer with us in the flesh. And maybe that's the key, you are not with us in a body, but we all feel your presence in our lives in different ways.

As for me, my journey is toward spiritual healing and awakening which I pursue with a singular focus. It is the only lens that truly helps to process your death and my broken heart. Sometimes I hike or plant flowers or stare into the sky and send my love from my heart to yours on the wisp of a cloud. And sometimes I just cry, my heart squeezes so tightly that it catches my breath and breaks the dam. Tears are sacred and even if they make other folks uncomfortable, I let 'em roll. Admittedly, I have my days where I just want to drink whisky or wine and that's okay, too. This grief is big enough for all of these and more. Every day is a new opportunity for me to find my footing, shoulder this burden and walk on.

There are times when I feel like your death is a defining moment in my life. I am becoming someone different, living so wholly in a new direction, as a result of walking this path that I don't recognize myself from me that was before. Overall, I'd say the transformation is positive. I'm more open, more willing to see things and forgive them in myself and others. I'm more resilient emotionally, now, having tapped a deep reservoir inside myself at the very core of my being.

But there are times when it's just too much for me still. Christmas is one of those times. The first year without you we tried scaling it back, I bought a smaller tree. We didn't put up all the decorations. We couldn't figure out what to do with all the ornaments that are yours…do we hang them on the tree? Could we bear to unwrap them…wrapped as they were by Nana the year before in the aftermath of your funeral? Still, we muddled along attempting to keep things as steady as possible. That was really hard and left me feeling scraped raw. In Xan's words, "It sucked."

At that point, I knew we needed to find a new way to be together at Christmas that wasn't so difficult. I came up with the idea that we would go somewhere as a family for the holiday and floated it to your dad and brothers. They liked the idea but were non-committal. I think they were just following my lead, sweet fellas that they are. As the year rolled along, it got too late to book a trip, but I couldn't stand the idea of being in this house. So the second year, we accepted Nana's invitation to go to her home and spend the night and be with everyone in the midst of the kids and chaos and revelry.

It was definitely better to be elsewhere, we all agreed. But even being at Nana's house was too close to the precious and painful memories of that last Christmas we spent with you. We needed a new holiday plan, Thor. We needed to reclaim Christmas for the four of us, establish new patterns that would allow joy to reemerge.

This year I booked us a house in Folly Beach, SC, right on the oceanfront for the entire Christmas week. I offered up a prayer that the ocean and nearby Charleston with her warm southern charm would do the heavy lifting of holding the space for us so we can just BE with each other. No one had to drum up extra merriment for the sake of the day. The ocean was resplendent, reflecting, dancing, waving, moving, singing and giving us all the gifts she can offer; a place to rest a broken heart, and splash gleefully in the chilly water, to shed countless tears and smile at the antics of seabirds and passing dolphins. We drew calming strength and hope of renewal from her unceasing ebb and flow and vastness. VitaminSea is exactly what we needed this year. We played games and walked together taking small joys in finding shells and taking pictures. We each took long solo sojourns breathing in the salt air and unraveling our secret tangled emotions and thoughts; offering them up to a tangerine colored sunset and an outgoing tide.

I wrote messages to you in the sand, sending them to you on the breast of Mother Ocean from my heart to yours. You showed up in beams of light playing with me and my camera. It lightened my heart to have this time to play with you, too. I tried not to overthink things throughout the week. Instead, I let my emotions to rise and fall with the waves bringing them to the surface and then exhaling them on the next wave. As the week progressed and our time drew to a close, some insights started to come into focus.

• The first is that I am still raw with grief and limping in many ways even if I have healed a lot. I also have a strong intellect and am able to think my way past strong emotions in order to get things done. This is good since I have a job and need to stay focused even if my heart is battered. 
• The second insight is that I need to remember to build time into my life to feel emotions, clear them and then breathe in fresh energy. I feel so much lighter, clearer and happier when I take time to Let That Shit Go… you know what I mean.
• The third insight is that your dad and brothers need me to stay open-hearted and to keep growing in LIGHT. There is an old saying, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. So, my responsibility is to keep moving forward and healing and taking care of myself so I can be present and whole for them.
• The fourth insight is that I will always think of the day you died as the day a new me was born out of the ashes of that terrible tragedy. This day, three years ago, we each made a big change, Thor. This time around it's my turn to learn from the pain of grief. It was the starting point for an earnest exploration of Faith, Grace, Love, the very nature of God and my being in any of these. 

The biggest thing I am coming to realize is really complicated and difficult to swallow. Would I have moved this much spiritually if you hadn't died? As much as it pains me to say, I don't think so. That's a hard thing to admit, you know that some good could possibly come of something so horrendous as losing my precious first-born son. But there it is. I would not be in this place, like this, with this wisdom, grace, and willingness to soften my grip on what I think I know if not for my world being blown to bits on that dark stretch of road three years ago. I would trade all of this insight for the story to have gone differently, but we didn't get that choice (at least not consciously on this plane). You are Light, pure Light, Bubby. And my job here on Earth is to radiate LIGHT in sacred connectedness with others; like facets of a crystal, we radiate LIGHT together.

We shine like diamonds in the sun
Everyone of us
We shine like diamonds in the sum
Everyone of us
May all beings be happy and free

Oh, Thor. I miss you so.
On this remembrance day, I'm sending you a big Mama hug and a kiss on the bright rainbow that connects my heart to yours.
When I close my eyes, I can feel you hug me back…tears stream down my face and splash on my open hands. They tell the story of my love for you and my heart's longing to see you again, sweet boy.  Let 'em roll...

I love you, 

Mom