I wasn't much into celebrating my birthday, what was the purpose, I'm just another year older, or as one person put it, another year closer to being reunited with my child. Jim's birthday was however a big one, you know ending in "5" or "0" and it deserved celebration. Not only because it was a big birthday, but because he is a wonderful and kindhearted man and we decided Wyatt would want a celebration. We had a wonderful party, friends from all segments of our lives shared in the joy of the day. We ate, drank, chatted, took photographs, hugged, cried and laughed. The day was filled with life, love and friendship and we relished every moment. Then the door closed. The people were gone. We sat together and quickly realized without words how very alone we were; how Wyatt's absence from this day, this celebration, cut into our very souls. He should be here. We yearn for him. We cherish the person he was and the man he was becoming. We want him in our lives, we want to share the joy of our lives with him. There were lamenting tears, wails of sorrow, mournful hugs and the overwhelming anguish of absence so heavy on our hearts. Our love for each other tenuously balancing comfort and agony at the same moment. To experience the torment together is almost more arduous than to cry alone, it's as if the pain becomes exponential in intensity, absorbing the suffering of the other, feeling their pain, knowing their heartache and sharing their torment. I would have it no other way, for love is to be shared, felt, known, worn on your heart and stained on your cheek, spoken in word and shown in deed, given freely, without question of yourself. Love is sharing our burdens and our joys. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
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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