My Son, My Heart, My Firstborn......

Warning! Around this time each year I'm compelled to take a span of time for myself to wonder, rage, cry, and just plain ask "Why?". Some might call what follows a maudlin post, one you may want to skip right on by, but it's one that begs writing -- if I'm to wend my way through this holiday season with no more than a shot-of-Jack-a-day to ease my mind.

Here goes.... I live with the uneasy awarness of this confrontation that is always lurking just around the corner, ready to blindside me in broad daylight and cause tears to roll down my cheeks no matter if I'm at home or in public, or it might sneak into my dreams in the wee hours when it can cause me to bolt upright in bed not able to breathe because it hurts so much. I knew, at some point during the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I would need to confront this pain, honor it, then take the deep breath needed to push it back down to its resting place where it would toss and turn fitfully and I could remember to smile, laugh, love until it awoke once again and demanded to be tended to.

That's why, when she called and wanted to meet for coffee, I knew what she wanted and what would happen. Add it did....

"How do you do it," she asked. "How do you get up each day and manage to put one foot in front of the other?"

Her loss is still fresh. Her wound still raw. Mine -- I'm learning to live with each and every moment of my life.

I'm not good at answers, but instantaneously I can spew forth an answer to this question -- an answer I've carefully constructed just so I can get out of bed each day and put one foot in front of the other. "I can face each day because my child is still alive -- as is yours," I tell her. "My child is out there (somewhere) and he does call (sometimes) and I know I can still hear his voice (odds are)." I have hope. And where there is hope, there is life. ....I choose to believe this. I must.

We are both mothers of lost children, but quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly I add that our children are at least alive and just maybe, just maybe, just maybe, just maybe our children can be reclaimed one day. You see, we are mothers to children who chose to run away -- or so it seems to us. We have no other explaination for what's happened. We didn't ask them to leave home. We didn't throw them out. We didn't say......do this or get out. We didn't abuse them. We don't know of anyone who did abuse them. We don't fucking know what happened to make them choose to leave.

We loved them from the momemt they were born. We crafted our lives around their needs. We tried to be there for them. We reclaimed them through the years when they left us and then reached out to us later on. We reclaimed them again, and again, and again. And......we would reclaim them again in an instant -- as many times as it takes.

They had loving extended family surrounding them. They went to some of the better schools. They were given lessons paralleling their interests -- we took pains to note their talents and interests. They had friends and parties and vacations. They had visits to social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists when we noticed they couldn't find contentment.

Yet......how could they have had all that and it not make any difference? I would be tempted to think that I am inventing all the above were it not for my three other children. They may not have had as much on offer to them as their older brother, yet they are still here -- missing the one who chose to leave. Not a birthday, holiday, celebration goes by that we don't miss the missing part of us. We thank God that he's still out there somewhere, (at least we pray he's still out there somewhere), and we feel guilty for celebrating without him. And we wonder why we are celebrating and not out there searching for him. We're getting good at not mentioning it on every occassion, but......I wonder if that's a good thing?

To me, what's happened is akin to a suicide in one way -- even though, THANK THE GOOD LORD, this child is still alive. But, how can you feel angry at someone who is hurting so much that they take their own life -- literally or figuratively -- choosing to leave those who love him? Is hurting the correct word? What is the correct word? Are we wrong sitting home learning to create happiness when we know that we could be out there walking the streets....searching to bring him home once again?

No question about it, we made our share of mistakes raising this child -- his dad and I. The only comfort I can find for that is to claim the statement I heard Maya Angelou make on Oprah's show one day. "I did the best I could at the time. When I knew better, I did better." (My paraphrase)

I know it's glaring that I can make all these statements and yet not be able to find any meaning in them. It's like I have all these clues and am just too dumb to put them together. All these signs, yet I can't read even one of them. Glaring -- yet I can't see a thing.

So when my need to see my child, hear his voice, hold him, know that he is all right, know that he is safe -- when this need is almost palpable all I can do is breathe. Prayer, trust, and faith help also, but who knows if that's real or just for my comfort?

So, as we moved from coffee to Orange Blossoms, this friend of mine and I, we started celebrating our children. Oh, it's easy to recall the hurt and pain they have brought us, and many of our family and friends do just that -- maybe because they are sad that we are sad. Maybe because they are sad that they are themselves sad. But this day we chose to remember the joy these precious children have brought to our lives.

After shared tears, laughter, memories, and hugs we walked out into the fading sun and the beginning of a spectacular sunset. The first lights of the season were twinkling in store windows as we walked to our cars, and I noticed that we were both smiling. I guess to anyone passing by it looked as if we were enjoying the early decorations. Who would be able to guess that our smiles were smiles born of hope -- hope that the wonderful children we had just remembered would make their way back to us. And....hope that this might be one of the nights that we would pick up a ringing phone and hear that special voice. It's so much easier to sleep on nights like that.

God bless you, protect you, and keep you close, my son, my heart, my firstborn.