Fall in g Again

It is Fall.

I finally realized why it is that I am so effected by the change in seasons. It is because with the change of every season comes the realization that my life goes on without my beautiful blue eyed boy Jeff. And that realization, if it sticks with me for too long, will make me crazy.

I am flooded with memories. I see the kindergartners taking that huge step onto the bus and I remember watching Jeff do the same thing. I see the young preteens at Wegmans looking at the cereal down the cereal aisle and I have to divert my eyes from the oatmeal packets that Jeff used to love to get. He loved them so much that we always got many more multiple boxes when we went down that aisle cuz "you never know". And I see the new college kids getting some pizza -- and I imagine what Jeff would have looked like now because he would have/should have started college this month.

I sent a facebook message to both of his closest friends last week craving for a long detailed reply about how the first few weeks of college was going for them. And I received 3 words from one, 6 from the other. I know it isn't fair and part of me simply wants to continue to yell and scream at the top of my lungs that it isn't but why? It wouldn't change anything.

I got into a discussion with my sister Cathy last week about God. Cathy mentioned about how a friend of hers was dying and about how she pretty much ended up healthy because of the strength of prayer. I wanted to let that comment go when I first heard about it and I did. But then she mentioned it two other times and I couldn't.

If you have lost someone you love (funny the terms we use for death) - If someone you love died read "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Rabbi Kushner. I have read it now about 10 times and it is pretty much my bible. It helped me better understand God - who is all loving and all knowing but NOT all powerful -- as most of us learned when we were growing up. God isn't up there pulling our strings like a puppeteer would steer a marionette. God --s/he doesn't respond to certain prayers (if they are strong enough or if the prayers are being said by good people) and ignore others. Our bodies will do what they will do as we are humans and our bodies imperfect as is our environment. What goes on in the world is our doing only. God is with us throughout our lives...to walk with us and to carry us at time. And s/he is within us and can be seen more easily in some than others. Our prayers bring us comfort and connection and help our love for one another grow and reproduce.

So I tried to tell Cathy all of this but realized, at the end, that she like so many others can not possible understand where I am at with all of this. Her sons and one daughter are alive. And I can't expect her to understand my going through this and to say exactly what I need her to say just like she can't expect me to understand fully what she has gone through that I have not.

Still - I miss Jeff sooo.

I am so very fortunate to continue to have Doug physically close to me because he is going to school locally and close to me emotionally as well. I am working hard to better understand what he finds helpful and what he doesn't and to remember how I felt at that age which makes understanding him a lot easier. We went together to Cape Cod for the better part of a week visiting my sister Linda and it was great. We went to the beach on day and swam together, went to Martha Vineyard one day, went to Provincetown one day and went whale watching and went out on Don's boat one day. Not very many mothers get to spend several days with their 21 year old sons vacationing. AND we were talking even when we got home afterwords.

I do seem to be overly concerned these days with losing another someone I love. I attribute this to the combination of my aging and the sad realization that if Jeff could die so quickly and unexpectedly than anyone can really. Within the past month I have heard of way too many people around my age either being diagnosed with cancer or dying. It makes it difficult to go to sleep at night worrying about if something were to happen to Doug or John or my family or close friends. This is where believing that God is all powerful and plays with us like we played with our dolls or combat men would really come in handy. If this were the case, all I would need to do, for example, would be to be grateful each day for what I had...perhaps thanking God in my prayers. (This was a practice I started to do right before I went to bed at night that I mistakenly believed would put me in God's favor thereby warding off evil. Learned through Jeff's death that God didn't work that way.)

So I am trying hard to take advantage of every opportunity I have to be with the people I love and/or to remind them that I love them.

In the blink of an eye it can all change.

We can be Fall in g Again.