Living with Loss

So I took a walk this evening and it didn't take long before I began to notice the things around me.  I could feel the warm air on my skin and yet the heat of the day had subsided. As I walked past our neighbor's house, I was drawn to a pine cone sitting on the edge of their yard.  I picked it up and began to examine it... intricate layers, precise and predictable, becoming less organized and polished as it became larger and the tip bent and scraped by the ravages of time and nature. Then the pecan that lay in the gutter crushed by the passing cars, the dry fallen leaves on the sidewalk twisted and crumpled. The delicate balance of our own existence mirrored in the substance of nature. We believe nature to be so powerful, so resilient, just like we think our lives and our bodies are....but truly nature is fragile, mercurial and unpredictable, just like our lives. We expect to experience pattern and course to nature...winter, sp...

I've been very aware of Wyatt's death lately.  It's more than his absence.  It's his death from this life that pours over me.  In the past 9 months or so, I'd gotten to the point where I was sleeping...but now I have ever increasing bad memories and thoughts that come to my mind and steal my rest.  I remember being a child and being so scared of the dark that I would always have a night light.  Sometimes, I would sit up in bed to the wee hours of the morning staring about the room, terrified that some paranormal being would enter.  To the contrary, I'm not afraid some evil being will enter my home; but the perilous thoughts are the same. The feeling that overwhelms me is total fear.  I become whelmed with an irrational, uncontrollable fear that makes me so very vulnerable, so alone, so afraid. Thoughts of death and dying, thoughts of Wyatt's accident and death, the hospital, the doctors, the prayers, the surgeries, the nur...

I just looked at some photos of Wyatt that are hanging on our living room wall and gave an exasperated sigh.  It was not a grieving sigh, it was pure irritation with it all...fatigue, sorrow, resentment, anger, frustration and disgust all rolled into one big sigh.  Why him?  Why me? This death makes me question all the choices I made in life.  Why did I marry the person I did, would it have been different if I didn't marry or married someone else?  Why did I choose the career I did?  Why didn't I stay at home with my child like my heart told me I should?  Why did I waste so many years doing things for others and not for my child? Why do I continue to be this person I'm so angry with? Who would I be now if I'd followed my heart instead of being responsible?  Would my life be more filled with sorrow or less? I can't help but continue to ask myself the question, why my son, why our family, why me.  There are many others out...