Moments

How do you fit into your understanding of life the death of your son?

I sent an email to an old friend of mine yesterday who hadn't heard of Jeff's death. It was the first time since the week after Jeff died that I had to type those words "my son Jeff died". There is something about seeing those words in print that makes me shudder. Then there is a sense of the unreal still. My friend Jody whose son died awhile back still feels a sense of the unreal at times. Maybe we always will.

This afternoon I sat at Jeff's gravesite. I really like going there as it is the one place I go where I feel these days like I can really talk to Jeff. Again -- the sense of the unreal when I see the words I have just written.

As I sat there looking at this cute yellow dog that Nell bought and put on the gravesite, I thought of the many times Jeff would wrestle Cos to the ground. Jeff was so much of a touchy feely young man in that he liked to wrestle Cos, his brother, whoever. So I thought of those times ...then I thought of the time Jeff was in the bathtub, he must have been four, and he was laying out straight with his head in the water and his legs straight and his arms at his side, saying "Look Mom, I'm a canoe." So I started writing in my little black book that Betty gave me, one moment after another until I was tired of writing. And then I thought about life -- and what may it worth while. Is it our kids? I once thought so. But what about when one of them dies before you do? What about the people like Deb and Linda who never had kids? Is it our job? Are we to find meaning in our job? What about the hundreds upon hundreds of people who unlike me, really despise what they are doing for a living. Is it other people? Do we live for other people? Do we live for God?

Then I thought - maybe the moments. Maybe we live for just the moments. The times when we stop what we are doing and take a mental snapshot of the scene and think "this is what it is about". It could be when your son Jeff "is a canoe"...it could be when your son Doug scores the first goal in his college career -- even if it is in the off season and you feel his thrill at doing so. It could be when you see your Mom in the airport at National Airport waiting for you and your son -- you have flown in for a work meeting and she has flown in to see you and take care of your son -- and she is smiling and tells you that it is the first time in her life that she has been away from your father ever. You go to the hotel that night -- that you are sharing with her. And you buy a bottle of wine and have it back at the hotel together and think "how could I have lived this long and not really appreciated my mother until l had children of my own?"

Maybe that is what we live for -- the moments -- one after another -- savoring them like fine wine...here one day...not the next.