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Time is Healing

"Daddy, Daddy!" Those are the last word I can clearly remember my son saying. He was only two when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

For the next months I watched my active little boy, slowly leave me. He could no longer speak, eat, walk, it was if he had slipped back into infancy. The hopes of seeing him grow and mature, were dashed in a twinkle of my eyes. How do you prepare to say good bye to someone you have carried inside of you for nine months. Give birth and only have him for such a short time.

When the time came to say goodbye, I felt as if I stepped out of myself. I disconnected my feelings and emotions. You are never prepared for this test. Trying to make sense of what was happening to me, I could not. Friends and relatives, said all the right things, but they couldn't possibly understand what I was going through. How can they if they haven't gone through this themselves. My emotions were anesthetic. I remained that way for along time after my son passed away. I went through all the steps of grieving. Numb, disbelieving, anger, questioning myself. What did I do wrong.

There are so many kaleidoscope of emotions, I touched on them all. Coping with the death of a child, everyone deals with their grief in their own way and own time. There is no set of rules.

Time is something I learned does help. It does not erase the pain completely, but it does make it bearable. It does not take away the memory of your sorrow, but I found myself reflecting on the things that made me laugh, something cute or silly he did.

Getting through the first anniversary of his death was painful. I could not help going back over the past year, reliving the sequence of events that lead up to his passing. Each year I would look at the calendar and dread as that time approached, another year to add to the many more I will be reminded of that painful period. As each year came and went, I found myself not looking on that day as a painful reminder, but a time to reflect on the joyous times I had to share with him.

Even through the tears, I learned to smile again. To believe in life and not to question why this happened to me. Instead I ask myself, what would my life have been like with out him in it. I am very thankful for the time I had with him. There are times when I find myself, wondering what his life would have been like. These would have been his teenage years. He would of been a sophomore in high school doing all the things young boys do at that age.

Time is a healing. I can look back and not fall apart. I can look at his pictures and not feel the catch in my heart. I am not drowning in tears. I can accept he's not here physically because, I know he's here with me spiritually.

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