I Miss You, I Miss Me

Dear Aaron,

It's been a little while since I wrote. I'm not sure why; I mean, it's certainly not because I haven't been thinking of you, missing you...

That's just part of me now, I think in some way in every minute, in every fiber of my being.

It's getting light earlier, and staying light later. The last few nights as I drive by to check on you, the lights on your grave are just coming on. The twilight deepens, the orange of evening lights up the dark mountains on the west side of the valley, and there's a beautiful bright star just to the west of you. My guess it is really Venus, but hey, to my uneducated eye, it's a bright, shiny, small pinprick of light.

Maybe kinda like you. I'm surrounded by memories of you, mementos of your life, your love. 

The longer days feel better, more comforting, but I cried on the way home from work yesterday for the first time in a while.  

I talked to Michael today. Do you also hang out with him? Are you serving alongside of him? It's pretty quiet here now. Except Sunday evenings, there's not much happening in the house. The fridge stays full for a long time and food has taken over your spot on the lower left side of the fridge. But I can still see your things there in my mind.

I go grocery shopping about once a week, but there's not much in my basket anymore. It's strange, this new life. Adjusting to our "new normal" with you was a whole lot more intense, time consuming, energy demanding. But I think this one challenges my mind more, twists my heart. 

I miss your laughter, your smiles, your silliness.

I miss the memories we won't make anymore.

I miss the me I was before.

I miss you.

Love,
Mom 

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

Linnaea

Dear Aaron,

Today Linnaea was looking at pictures of you on my screensaver 

She asked, "Can Aaron talk now?"

I smiled and said, "yes, and run and laugh and dance and play and do so many things!" 

Then, "Where is he?"

"He's in Heaven."

"Still??" 

"Yes, still" and the knife in my heart twisted a little. 

Oh, my funny Valentine, I miss you.  

Sometimes Heaven feels close, and other times so very far away.

Love,
Mom  

“You’re everywhere except right here, and it hurts.”

— Rupi Kaur

Diagnosis Day, Two Months, Forever To Go

Dear Aaron,

Fifteen years ago today I went for the "routine" ultrasound that wasn't. 

I didn't really think too much about it beyond finding out if you were a boy or a girl. Daddy met Michael and I there. Michael was only 3. He was my sidekick, always with me since the big kids were in school. When the doctor started talking (for what it's worth, when the doctor comes into the ultrasound, it's never a good thing), I started crying and really couldn't stop. 

Michael told Daddy to make them stop hurting me, and we tried to explain that the doctor wasn't hurting me, but he just couldn't understand.  

Our next appointment was five days away, which felt like an eternity. 

In some ways, that day seems like an eternity ago, but my body still remembers, still hurts. Today feels heavy, dark, hard.

And it's been two months since Gramma came to join you. Did you come get her? Did you hold her hand as her spirit slipped away from her body, from the hands that were holding her earthly hands? 

While we were in Arizona, I noticed a book on the table near where she sat. I have wondered if she read it. I mean, she found out a few weeks before that she was permanently losing her eyesight and that was so hard for her. I remember her saying on more than one occasion that her eyesight was the one sense she was terrified of losing. I'm sure it was for a variety of reasons, but I know not being able to read was a big part of that.  

Gramma read voraciously. She passed that on. I don't remember not being able to read. I learned before I went to kindergarten. As she read everything, so did I. Cereal boxes in the morning, magazines in offices, even JAMA at the pediatricians. The Reader's Digest and church magazines were staples in our home, and library cards were prized. 

So when I saw the book on the table, I wanted to read it. And those library cards? Well, I still have one. I read it last week, a bittersweet experience, the last book she will recommend to me. Mom came of age during the Vietnam era. Papa was in country. She married an Air Force officer. The book was about women nurses over there. I could almost feel her spirit as I read. Oh, I hope she did get to read it. It was the kind of book that spoke to her, and maybe a bit of her. 

As I finished reading it, it was a little like saying good-by all over again.

Fifteen years since your diagnosis, two months since Gramma slipped away, and what feels like forever until I hold you both again.

The full moon rose above Box Elder Peak tonight, seemingly caught in the tree branches, watching over your grave. Did you see it? Did you see me checking on you? Did you feel the cold wind rustling your butterflies?

I love you, little man.

I miss you so much.

Love,
Mama

“Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now.”

Russell M. Nelson

Waves

Dear Aaron,

It comes and it goes. Like the waves on the beach.

Last week I was pretty good. Earlier this week I was okay.

The last few days... well... it's hard.

I don't like February.

It's dark, cold, often dreary. 15 years ago on Tuesday, my world rocked when I went for the "routine" ultrasound. It was anything but routine.

Fourteen years ago you were admitted for your first "scary" pneumonia. You kick that in the butt! Once we were settled, I started asking how long they thought we'd be there and no one would answer. When we discharged six days later, everyone was astounded! That's when I was told that they had expected several weeks, if you managed to survive. 

Then all week, Facebook has been reminding me of February 2022.  Sepsis, DIC, neurostorming. Fragile enough to prompt a move to the middle of the ICU and your own one-to-one nurse for days on end. On February 6, 2022, you were given a priesthood blessing and this is what I wrote the next day:

Yesterday I had the chance to take the sacrament and then the Elders gave him a priesthood blessing. It was beautiful, and I have a hard time remembering what was said. He was blessed with strength, and his family too, and that his body would be strong. But I also got the impression at that time that this was going to be rough and long, and frankly, hard.

I had no idea how long or rough that stay was going to be. Or how much more you would be called on to endure over the next 22 months. 

Or how my heart would break, shatter, when yours stopped.  

And then Gramma. I wanted so badly to call her yesterday, to talk to her and hear her voice. It wasn't even anything "special" or significant. 

February may have the shortest number of days, but in some ways, it is the longest month.

My heart hurts.

I toss on waves and they overwhelm me. 

I know they will ease again; they always do.

But right now, right now, it just hurts.

Love,
Mama 

“One more day

One more time

One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied

But then again

I know what it would do

Leave me wishing still, for one more day with you.”

— Diamond Rio 

I Carry You

Dear Aaron,

For nine months I carried you inside of me.

For 13 1/2 years (and ten days), I carried you with me.

For 58 weeks now, I carry you, unseen, in my heart, my soul, the very marrow of my bones.

In a very literal sense, your cells still reside in my body and likely always will. 

But I carry you in other ways, too. 

I made a watch band this past week using the beads I made your trach chains from. I use your lunchbox every day at work. I wear the bracelet Gramma gave me after you passed, which also now symbolizes my life without her as well. Your prints hang in one office, your toys are in both. 

I always wear butterflies and your name is on my key ring. Your pictures hang on my walls and keepsakes are in the curio cabinet. Your minion rock is on my desk.

There's a butterfly on the back of my car and an angel crystal hanging from the rearview mirror. Your "hope" bib hangs on the shelf in my room next to the ribbons from your funeral spray. My watch face is yellow roses and a butterfly for you and Gramma as is my lockscreen. 

You are everywhere with me.  

I see your smiles pop up on my computer screen; I miss the sound of your laughter. 

I carry you, and your spirit carries me.

You carry me through the days and nights, through the anguish and the pain, and through the smiles that come in spite of my tears. 

I'm not sure how it has been 58 weeks already, and yet only 58 weeks. It seems like forever since we said goodbye, and yet it doesn't. 

I spent yesterday working on a ceramic nativity from the same mold as one of Gramma's that I've always loved. It was calming and introspective. I miss the two of you so much, and I also feel your strength. You lift me and teach me and make me more than I could ever have been without you. 

You carry me; I carry you.

Forever and always.

Love you so much, little man.

Love,
Mama

"We do not have to rely on memories to recapture the spirit of those we have loved and lost – they live within our souls in some perfect sanctuary which even death cannot destroy."

- Nan Witcomb