by wamama

Created on: September 06, 2008   Last Updated: December 29, 2011

Moving on is a term of the same ilk as the oft repeated "letting go". Neither is a fit for me and, quite frankly, either one may elicit a sharp response. To "move on" conjures up images of "leaving behind" in my mind's eye. "Letting go" is like saying farewell. I am not prepared to do any of these things, nor do I find them necessary processes for the bereaved.

I suppose that I should relate a little history in order to better explain my feelings. Five years ago I was a mom resting on her laurels, my two children well on their way to achieving their dreams. Both my daughter and son had grown from those miniature people that parents bring home from the hospital into the adult children that parents long for. Simply watching them in their day to day lives and interactions with the world around them filled my heart beyond measure. Their wit, wisdom, love and laughter was truly something to behold. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that my children had not only reached adulthood, but had done so in splendid form. Life was good and the best was yet to come.

On a perfect starlit summer night I drifted off to sleep after my evening prayer. It was a simple prayer, asking for my children to always know that they are loved, to be guided on their life paths, to know happiness and to be safe. On this night my son had taken his special girl to dinner, then on to meet his employer and finally to gaze at the heavens as they reluctantly said goodnight. He had traveled 8.1 miles towards our home, close enough to have his hand on the turn signal preparing to make the left into our driveway, when a drunk driver crossed the center line and brutally killed him in a fiery crash. My baby boy, but a breath away from the safety of his home, lay dying as my prayer was whispered into the quiet of the night. My next words were "No! Oh God NO! Please God NO!" as I ran past my husband, the phone still in his hand, down the stairs and to the front door. There on the front porch stood deputy, coroner and chaplain. There are not words to adequately describe the horror that ensued and lives still in my soul.

Motherhood had given me the most joyous moments in my life. I likened those moments to heaven on earth and had told my children that it was through them I already knew heaven. On this night, motherhood took me to the depths of hell. My son was dead and now I had to break my daughter's heart with the news that her baby brother had been killed. The hopes and dreams of both my children, so intertwined,

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