Under the knife again tonight- no anesthesia. It is an overwhelming thing to hold in this kind of grief while tucking in your toddler, saying prayers, singing a lullaby- kissing her- and closing the door to head into your own room and experience sheer torture.
I am shocked really at how new this idea is to me this weekend. I'm thinking it's because the concert reminds me of the funeral...whatever the cause, if there is any, I feel back at the beginning.
The grief burrows into every crevice and hides so that I only catch glimpses and the horror can strike again and again- never giving me time to get used to it.
I am finishing up the slideshows- looking at all of the photos of you as a child and a boy and a young man. I love that child, boy, young man, and the Dan I met. One of the little gifts I made you when we fell in love- we were both incessantly making each other things- was a photo of you and I as little children. We are both about four or five. I spliced you into a shot of myself one Easter at my grandmother's house outside in the yard- putting you in my brother's place with some glue. I framed it in a small frame. I don't think it's gross to say I loved that little boy. So I've been thinking, if I could love the you that existed long before I knew you- maybe I can continue to love the you that I don't know exists?
And I've been thinking about the depth of this grief and wondering how it could possibly be anything other than spiritual and holy? If you know this grief, you can no longer think that we are just animals running strictly by biology. You can not. It doesn't mean that Christianity or any given religion is true, but it certainly means that there is something- something else. This pain stemming from love goes far beyond biology or brain chemistry- far, far beyond. It is something coming from another world.
I think about how if you had not died, I would have had one continuous life- with many seasons and parts, but one life- one whole life.
Now my life is fractured in half. There is the life I lead before I knew this kind of sorrow and the life I will lead hereafter. It feels a heavy burden to live two lives in one lifetime.