I am linking up.

It has been awhile since I have participated in Just Write and I have missed it. There is so much swimming around in my head and I don’t want to think through it all, I just want it out.

My son poked me on Facebook tonight. He does that every now and then just to reach out and let me know, in his teen boy way, that he’s thinking of me. Typically, it makes me smile and I poke him back. Tonight, it brought tears to my eyes.

Tonight, my friend is reliving the last moment her son made her a cup of tea and left for the evening. But, he won’t be coming back this time. He won’t be driving her crazy, poking her or calling her to request pizza rolls.

And it could so easily be me. Or you. Or anyone.

I hurt for her.

I want to ease her pain and lessen her loss, but there is no way to do that. I want to ask Bubba what he would want me to know if I was her and he was gone. But I won’t.

I am at a loss of words. In just a few hours, life will be marked by its first full week without her son. I can’t grasp the unfairness of it all. I can’t make any sense of it.

And it terrifies me. How easily things can change. How suddenly someone you love and live for can just be gone. How permanent and unyielding loss can be.

I remember those first few nights without Baby J. I can easily recall the depth of my despair and how her absence caused me physical pain. I remember how it turned me inside out.

I remember telling me therapist it felt like she had died, but it was worse because she lived, but she was gone. She wasn’t buried in the ground or returned to ash, but she wasn’t there. I didn’t know if she was scared or cold or hungry. I didn’t know if they let her cling to her blankets or if they underestimated their importance to her. I didn’t know if someone was holding her when she cried or if they just left her to sob herself to sleep.

But who is to say what is less and what is more? Who is to say which pain is greater?

How many moms have miscarried their child? How many children have gone to sleep, never to awaken? How many parents have burried their child too early…too young…too soon?

My heart aches for them. My heart breaks for her. My heart bears the scars and reminders of this unique brand of pain.

There is so much swimming around in my head and I don’t want to think it all through. I just want it out.

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