The icky part

After 5 1/2 years of being without Paul, most of the horror regarding the circumstances of his death is gone. OK, not gone. Just different. Just like the pain. Different.

However, the horror rears its ugly head now and then. I wonder what people would think if they knew what sometimes happens in my mind....

Yesterday Analice and I were face to face and she asked why she has long eyelashes and I said, "your Daddy had long eyelashes" and then we talked about her brown eyes and his brown eyes and my brown eyes.....

The entire time we were talking about our eyes, I was having horrible flashes of a knife heading to Paul's eye. I was cringing inside, horrified, wondering if he saw it coming, if he felt pain, how long he suffered. I imagined him lying on the ground, bleeding....horrible images, horrible thoughts.

And all the while my mind was conjuring up horror and my heart was beating faster and my stomach was tied in knots and I had horrible pain in my chest and groans in my mind of "oh Paul" and "my poor baby", I was talking to my granddaughter about eyes.

I looked normal, spoke normally, but inside I was a mass of horror. It left me drained.

And no one knew.

Until now....

And so, today is Paul's 25th birthday. The birthday is an incredibly empty day for a mother. No gifts to buy & wrap. No cake to bake, balloons to buy. No meal to fix or restaurant to choose. No memory-sharing. No quarter-of-a-century jokes this year.

Today two friends took me to lunch at Olive Garden, pampered me something awful....I loved it and I needed it! I thought I wanted to be alone, but I didn't.

Happy Birthday, Son. I miss you.

A Poem

I got this poem from a grieving parents newletter. It's written by Crystal Armes Gibb of Illinois.

RHYME OF PAIN

Pain is not removed by TIME, though grief may seem less defined.
When someone we love dies, the very heart and soul will cry an endless stream
of aching tears with pain that follows us for years.
The foolish man is heard to say that TIME will take the pain away.
Though it lessens and subsides, the fact remains: our loved one died.
And missing the one so dear does not diminish,
for it's clear, no matter how much TIME goes by,
the empty longing makes us cry.

Unexpected

The flashes of memory come unexpectedly. Reading the newspaper article about Gabby Giffords this morning flashed me to a memory of a nurse putting something into Paul's I.V. bag and me asking what it was.

Another flash to the kind, kind, direct gaze of the doctor as he said "no" in response to my question, "So there's no hope?"

I cringe as I feel the pain and horror once again. I let myself dwell in the memories and feel the pain for a bit.

Then I go on reading the paper.

Five years ago those memories, and others, were constantly on my mind, no let up, as my mind processed the horrible reality.

Sometimes I'd beg God for relief.

Slowly, slowly, as time passed, my mind could think on other things for longer and longer periods of time.

No longer a constant torment, the memories are still there, waiting to pop up when prompted.

And it's OK. I've learned to welcome the jabs of pain, the remembering.

Memories processed.
Reality accepted.

Yet I will never forget and never fail to be horrified.