Arrival

It arrived so suddenly though I had expected it, waited for it with an anxious heart.

At the moment it arrived, I wasn't ready.  My mind tried to tune it out, change the path, avoid the destination.  I was waiting but I was not ready.

"I don't want you to go to heaven."  My kiddo sat trying to hold back tears with tiny sausage fingers.

Did that give it away to any of you?  Owen.

Me:  "I'm not going to heaven sweetie, I am staying here with you to be your mommy,"

Owen:  "But I was a baby once and I had a daddy that I loved and he went to heaven."

Yes, I gasped too.

I gasped so audibly that the air in the room rushed into my heart and opened the wound that I have spent much time tediously mending into a usable condition.

Owen's tiny little sausage fingers almost clawed at his eyes that were brimming with tears.  He was sad.  So simple.  In that moment I couldn't help but wonder why he felt the need to cover the crying.

We talked honestly about heaven, about his daddy, about being sad.  I told tiny fibs about staying here with him forever.  I sent out silent prayers to God that he make that part true. Really I begged.  It's my nightmare.  Nothing can happen to me.  Not now.  No cancer, no car accident, no ailment I can't cure with Tylenol and a nap.  Nothing.

Crushing is the weight of that conversation.

The follow up...I knew it was coming.  And it did.  On the next night.

Perhaps it's the song I sing at bed time, on his request.  We call it Serenade.  The Dixie Chicks call it Lullyby.  The lyrics ask, "How long do you want to be loved?  Is forever enough because I'm never, never giving you up."

Never giving up.  That's sort of my motto.  Hours after Chris died, I vowed I would not let this world fall down on them.  I would never give up.   

The follow up went a bit like this, Owen: "I'm sad.  I want my daddy here not in heaven. I love my daddy."

Me too buddy.

I do what mommy's do.  I reassured my sweet boy that his daddy loves him so much, that his daddy watches over him, that we can still love people who are in heaven and they love us in return and we feel it.

It's as simple as that.  The arrival of feeling.  Previously it was all fact.  Daddy is dead.  Daddy's heart was not working right and nobody knew it.  The associated feelings are now present in the mind and heart of my little man.

It's in this moment I recall the conversation with a friend who lost her mom at a very young age.  Her insight.. grief is evolving.  We grieve and re-grieve in different ways over time depending on circumstance and age.  I knew it was true by simply living the past 2 1/2 years watching Maya's every word, every nightmare, every story.  But Owen had yet to arrive.  His arrival has rocked my boat and made me question my ability to steady three ships in the storm of grief.   

The arrival of Owen's grief, I was waiting but I was not ready.