I feel like a big elephant is sitting on my chest. I want to cry, and scream and explode in anger at this life, this world. What makes this pain subside, What? It will never go away as long as I breathe, but if it would just subside. I can't get this agony to let up; I try, I work hard at it, but it rears its ugly head every time I think I'm making some progress. Right now, I don't want to function, I don't want to be human, I don't want to be productive, I don't want to do anything; I want my son, I want him here, with me, in this time and place. I want MY son.
People have amassed shrines for years. In Prague there is a wall dedicated to John Lennon; flowers and photos adorn the gates of Princess Diana’s home in London; an eternal flame shines for the unknown soldier; Shinto shrines celebrate wind, rain, mountains, trees and rivers; we bury our dead and mark the grave with a headstone….we want a marker of those things valuable and important to us. That is how we feel about our dead children; we don’t want our children to be forgotten, we must remember them, others must remember them. My son's boots are my shrine to him. His boots are the only thing left from his accident. They sit there, worn but whole, and I see him, I think of him, I remember him, I love him. His boots do that for me….they create an instant recall of him, his person, his character, his life. Don’t tell me to put the boots away, don’t tell me that is it unhealthy to hold on to things that recall his memory…it is...
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