THE END OF A BEGINNING

A beginning, a very short but magnificent middle, and then the dying begins.  What am I talking about?  What else could it be but life and the life of a flower in particular.  All of this energy goes into the creation of the flower bud.  The bud opens and for a few short days it is in its glory of perfection.  But then, all too quickly, it begins to fade.  Then it withers, its petals fall, and it dies.  So sad.  But for a short time it was awesome and during the growing and dying process, it produced seeds that will fall to the ground and if the conditions are right, life will begin again in the spring or summer of the next year. And that is nature's plan.


To me, it is not the length of one's life that matters (be it animal, flora, or human) but how that life is lived.  At my son, Christian's, memorial service, his friend said that we should not think about how Christian died but how he lived his life.


Sadly while I know this is not true for all children,  it is true of my son and hopefully for the majority of children:  in the beginning they are happy, they are nurtured and loved, and they grow from beautiful children into adventure and knowledge seeking youths and finally into fine young adults.  They are our proud and our joy.  And along the way they leave their imprint not only on us but  on others they come in contact with.  These children give us memories of good times and not so good times but in growing and maturing that is bound to happen - would be oddly wrong if they didn't cause us some heartache and worry.


But OUR children, spouses, brothers, sisters, parents, loved one, and friends are different.  For a variety of reasons, and even though they fought the good fight, their lives were cut short.  Their zest for life faded, their desire to live withered, and they fell to earth.  But unlike flowers, the seeds of their existence have been planted in our hearts, in our minds, and in our souls.  And as long as we live, they will live.  They will live in the spoken word and in the written word of all of that knew them.  But most of all they will live in our hearts and our memories.


Even now after only a year and a few months have past, I realize that there are so many things I am beginning to forget about my first year of living without my beloved child.  Thank goodness I have kept a journal.  It not only helped me sort out my feelings but it gave me a place to vent without being hurtful to others.  As they say, you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.  That first year was spent in a state of numbness.  It is only now in rereading my journal that I understand how far I've come in this journey.  I have become a strong advocate for journaling and would encourage anyone that is going through a loss to start putting your thoughts, feelings, and memories on paper.  It really, really helps.


During a time when I was thinking about how fragile life is, I wrote the following:

I  AM

October 20, 2010

I am the first flower of Spring

I am the early morning dew on blades of grass

I am the starlight in the night sky

I am a shooting star

I am a falling raindrop

I am the dust in dry desert winds

I am the mist off crashing ocean waves

I am the wind that sways the branches of trees

I am a gently falling snowflake

I am a rainbow

I am the clouds overhead

I am the sunlight through trees

I am the light of a candle

I am the smoke from a fire

I am ice, I am snow

I am an echo heard from mountain tops

I am the crash of a tree in the forest

I am a lightening bolt and the roll of thunder

I am the radiating rings caused by a raindrop in a rain barrel

I am light reflecting in the lake at night

I am a moon beam

I am a first kiss.

I am here briefly and then gone forever-

a whisper in the wind.

Dried roses from Christian's Memorial Service