"The Journey Ends.
There can be no triumph without loss...
No victory without suffering...
No freedom without sacrifice."

~ from the "Return of the King" movie trailer

Thoughts from one left behind

It's hard picking up the pieces of life when the fight is over, and going on like everything has returned to normal when in fact you no longer remember what normal is, what it was like to not fight. These brief writings were simply my own way of coping.

July, 2003:
A couple of messages to a dear friend have followed me through these years. The first was the evening of the day he died, the second the morning after. These were sent as emails.

"This is an interesting night...I felt compelled to record it for my future reference. I know you wonder what it's like to be here now.

I approached the house here at a "moment". Whether anyone else was aware or not, it was nearly 9:15pm...this meant twelve hours since his passing, the first sunset he couldn't witness if he'd been awake, the end of the first day without him, the beginning of the first night where he wasn't sleeping over at Tyler's or Neil's house. Outside, the "festival parking" had abated, and one lonely van and a car sat in the drive. Inside, the house had returned to apparent normalcy: the coolers gone, the oxygen concentrator silent and missing, the tubes no longer snaking into the livingroom. The couch no longer held his still, frail body, and looked like it never had, like it was just waiting for my visit to keep it company through the night once again, like so many nights before. Will I feel his spirit there when I finally can bring myself to retire? Will I smell his boyish smell, or his disease? Will he embrace me from within the cushions?

He left in such an instant this morning. Betsy was holding his hand and he suddenly opened his eyes wide, gasped a tiny bit, and was gone. In an instant. No brief moments for anyone else to rush to his side, no dramatics, just an unseeing look, and then gone.

The stillness now is palpable. The earth cried for him today, the rain falling like tears, while the sun had shined every day he lay still. Three different people called Betsy about the rainbow over their house, but she and Mariah had already seen it, and Mariah told Betsy it was a gift from Hunter, an "I made it" sign. In the other room, Mariah sleeps restlessly with Betsy, awaking in tears from time to time. I sit here and stare at the couch. I could go downstairs, but I won't. I'm not afraid of my boy, and I don't want to be that far from them should they need me.

Must go now... be well"

**********************

"I awoke this morning at 6:30. The new sun was coming in the window, turning the livingroom a bright burnt orange. I awoke to the sound of absolutely nothing at all, and upon rising, crept through the house attempting not to disrupt the stillness.

Many mornings I have done this, but today, despite the festive rays shining in, the silence has a different feel. In the silence, I can hear the absence of laughter, the absence of quarreling. I can hear the quiet sobbing of a heart breaking. I can feel no one sneaking up behind me as I type, to throw his arms around me and kiss my neck, offer me coffee... Downstairs, Jules sleeps on the couch in the new room, near his drum set and PlayStation, resting up before that long drive back to Boston. In Ithaca, a child's hand drum becomes the center of attention, replacing in a missing heartbeat the beautiful and expensive one it inspired.

Last night we lit the sparklers and launched the fireworks that would have had him beside himself with joy. His sister carried on his legacy of pyromania at the fire with us until 3am. Today we will gather up the fallout in the yard. We will bounce on the trampoline, clean the house, and feed the dogs, like any other day. But it's not any other day.

The world has a new reality today, and I'm simply not sure how to handle it, how to pick myself up so that I can pick up the others. Hearts will heal, learn to see and feel the things that are missing, but today they simply bleed."