Take Me Back to the Start

I’ve stared at this blank page so many times.

I know this needs to happen. I know this has to be part of my process. Forcing myself and all of my thoughts back into this space is as necessary as it is painful. Mandatory masochism. So much has happened, where do I even start?

The memories give me no choice.

After the unexpected death of a good friend last year I heard a lot of advice, remember the good times. While unhelpful at first, those memories are indeed what I cling to now. His laugh. His voice. His hug. He lived as much as anyone has ever lived. Those memories, the same ones that used to overwhelm me, now make my heart swell with love and happiness over a life well lived.

After you died no one told me to remember the good times.

But that is precisely where my brain went; to where you still exist. Birth is synonymous with the start of life itself. Your death date precedes your birth date. You have no dash. Am I left to conclude that you never lived? I heard your heartbeat, I felt you move, I watched you dance across a screen and my belly many times. Of course you lived.

I have dozens of material mementos from you; footprints, teddy bears, hospital bracelets, pictures, necklaces. Anything that physically touched you will always be sacred. But the memories mean the most. Regrettably these memories will fade. In that lies my greatest fear.

If all I have of you are six beautiful months of life, and six bittersweet hours of death, I will choose to relive them until the day that I die. I want to remember you, I will revel in this space. You are my son, I am your mom.

So that’s where I’ll start.
I will start, with you.