Four Weeks

Aaron, it's midnight, Friday changing to Saturday, again...

It's been four weeks.

I saw your bus driver this morning. 

I had a hard time getting up today. That's really not new. I have a hard time getting moving most days now. I realized about 7:45 that if I needed a shower, and to take care of the dog, and get to work in time for a 9 am appointment, I'd better get in gear.

So I did.

And I as I was driving down the road about 8:25-ish, I saw your bus coming towards me. I recognized your driver. He drove you all of last year, and the very few days you went this year. You actually didn't make it very often. Not that I can see anymore anyway. You no longer have an Alpine school district account, almost as if you weren't there. That hurts, too.

And in seeing the bus on the road, my heart clenched.

All week long it seems people have been talking about the flu. How bad it is. How awful it is to be so sick. Someone even mentioned that they'd heard that people could die from it.

Yeah...

Oh baby...

I know it was your time. I know you were promised you'd live all the days you were supposed to. Your days were known and numbered, and I saw evidence of that throughout your life, sometimes dramatic evidence.

And even your passing showed His glory and His power. 

But that doesn't mean I don't miss you dreadfully.

In a few minutes, at midnight, it will have been 4 weeks since they woke me to say your pressures were low...

How? 

How can that be?

How can you really be gone? 

And how can it hurt so badly? Hurt to breathe? Hurt to exist? How do I exist in a world where you are not?

Oh Aaron, be close.

When I wake in the mornings it's like I'm numb and I have no motivation to move. 

But at night, the ache is so sharp, so visceral. I cry out with the torment. 

At work, I help people learn to feel. Some have told me that feelings are scary, painful. But feeling is part of living. So I try to follow my own advice and lean into the ache. But they're also right. It hurts, more than I could ever imagine. It's no wonder that sometimes we want to avoid the agony.

But at the same time, to not hurt would mean I didn't love. And my boy, I did,  and I do love you, more than life itself. So I'm grateful, in a way, to miss you. You are worth the anguish in my heart. You taught me so much. You make me a better mom, wife, friend, and person. You taught my soul, and in a lot of ways, you probably still do. 

I love you, I miss you. 

"I could have missed the pain

But I'd have had to miss the dance"

Garth Brooks