My best friend lost a child almost two months ago. She is so strong. When this sort of thing happens, you expect the death to become a taboo subject, almost like the very mention of his name (Owen) will throw salt into a never-healing wound. And maybe it does. But I'm learning that the pain of remembering is worth the memory itself. He remains in our hearts and on our minds and the fact that he is still part of the conversation is a tribute to that fact.
Oddly, even though it's been a while, it still hits me like a freight train that he is gone. It wasn't exactly sudden but he'd been sick so long, I sure didn't expect it. So I'll see a picture of him on FB and I'll sit and remember a moment with him, a smile or a shy moment where he hid his face... and the fact that it doesn't happen anymore will make me realize -- again -- that he's truly gone. I hate that word. Gone. I guess he's not gone, just transferred. He took the early train to Glory Land.
Death has been a silent obsession of mine since Matt died. I absolutely do not grasp it. I only grasp the absence of someone. Usually when I cry it is for the people who've lost someone or for my own loneliness when I do miss someone in a specific instance, particularly my Grandma. Maybe that's why it's such an obsession and I fear death SO much in my close family because if I lost Jake or Braeden, it would be every single day that I would feel that loss of presence and maybe then I would finally understand death.
