The Dragon's Eye View: For Thor - 73

I'm supposed to be working. Instead, I'm here writing to you. My new job started a little over two weeks ago, and while it's amazing to be a part of something so cool, in all the hectic activity I've missed you more keenly, more deeply. There is no place for my tears in my new day. And when I get home there is the rush of activity that naturally follows an intense full-time job; get supper on the table, debrief from the day and plan for the next, collapse and try to get some rest before doing it all again. I have two hours each day in the car, and on many days this is the time for tears to fall and for us to pick up our conversation. A conversation that is all too one sided for me, Bubby. But today, I have to set aside work for a spell and write. The whirl of emotions has reached a crescendo and is spilling out beyond tears and gut-wrenching agony to take the form of words on a screen. My to-do list will have to rest unattended for a bit.

The leaves on the trees glow with sunlight filtering through them in hues of amber, gold, and ruby. They dance and spin through the air in an autumn breeze. I watch out the window as nature once again shows me the total impermanence of anything in this world. A leaf that lay on the ground today, riddled with holes and crisp with frost was once the harbinger of a new season, unfurling to greet the spring. Our lives so very like these leaves celebrated in each expressive phase. Your leaf was a whole, healthy, bright green beauty, torn from life's branch by a terrible wind of fate. I long for you to have lived a long, full life greeting so many more sunrises before falling to the earth, my boy. My heart overflows with love, but also anger and regret. How is it that such a fine, strong son is struck down before he even gets going? Where is the sense or justice or fairness or reason or anything that tells me how to find my footing when you are gone? How do I reconcile a broken heart and a joyful life?

Thanksgiving is on the horizon, and I'm a wreck inside. I don't want to think about family gatherings. Our collective presence shines a stark light on the edges of the hole, the empty place, left by your death. Every day it's there, but on these holidays it looms larger and more painful, pointed up like long shadows cast by a bright light. Christmas ads, carols, invitations to parties, hints at the celebration that typically bring a smile and spark anticipation are like a million terrible knives cutting me all at once. I want to run away to somewhere where these holidays aren't in the culture. I checked airfare to Fiji and Bali, I don't have a passport, so it's a rhetorical exercise. The horrible thing is that no matter how far I run, I'll never outrun the fact that we are closing in on the worst time of the year and there is nothing to be done. I have to endure it, somehow. That's what has me short tempered, uncertain, quick-to-cry and lacking resilience.

Each day dawns with new promise, and I try to find footing to walk ahead into that possibility. I sit in meditation and visualize peace washing over and through me, I pray for Grace and vision to see the way. I long to see your face and hear your voice in my heart. Then I get in the car and drive into another flurry of activity, putting my heartbreak aside for a few hours. I've gotten away with it for a couple of weeks now, but today meditation brought tears that rose out of the depths of love and sorrow. The drive to town took longer because I had to stop along the way when I couldn't see the road for sobbing.

We had a work party putting the barn on the roof last weekend. The trusses went up, and the sheeting went on. Dad is thrilled to have his things under cover. We missed you greatly, darling. Chaz discovered that he could wear your Red Wing boots. My heart was in my throat as he laced them up and strode out with determined, proud steps. All day long, we could have used another pair of hands, and it went unsaid, but clearly understood that those hands should have been yours. You would have eaten that shit up! These are the things that twist my heart in new agony. It was a gorgeous day with friends and family working together, and yet, there is an undercurrent of sadness that just won't fade.

I went to the "launching pad" the other day and hung a new wreath on the tree. I straightened the myriad offerings of flowers, candles and little trinkets collected near the base. I still sit on that little patch of earth where you left us, where your heart stopped, and you breathed your last. I sit there because it is the last place you touched on the actual earth. I have a handful of this earth in a little jar at home. People wonder how I can stand to be there. To me, it's sacred, holy and eternally ours. Maybe I'm crazy, but I do what feels right at the moment.

One morning I went into the bedroom to wake Xanny. His face nestled under the blankets in just the right way to reveal only his hair, brow, and nose. He looks so much like you, Thor! At that moment I couldn't breathe. I just stood there looking, reveling in the gift of seeing "you" in the flesh, seeing how you live on in your brother. And you do live on in your brothers, in many ways. In memories, and music, hobbies and movies and most of all in the love we have for you.

I don't know what I'm going to do to survive the upcoming holiday season, Thor. I don't want to celebrate. And I don't want to let it all go, either. Maybe we need to change things up and do something different. Traditions seem to fly in the face of my grief this year. Gifts and candy and cookies and lights and decorations and parties. God, it all sounds so contrived. My heart isn't in it.

Maybe it's just going to suck, and that's all there is to it. I pray for the strength to walk ahead when all I want to do is fall on the floor and sob. Maybe the joy will infiltrate the sorrow like stars on a night sky; it seems hopelessly dark, but if I give it time, those stars can show the way.