How Love Works
January 31, 2020
Dear Will,
Boy, oh boy. Turning the calendar to not only a new month, and to not only a new year but to a new decade sure magnifies how long it’s been since my worst day ever and how much I miss you still. I know I will miss you forever, sweet boy… that is just how love works. The minute to minute, moment to moment, day to day; the ebb and flow of every sunrise and every sunset from days to weeks to months and years just seems like too much to process at times. It still surprises me that a minute can feel like forever and forever can feel like a minute. I guess that, too, is how love works.
I remember years ago (it doesn’t feel good to even say that) I used to count the days since your passing and when those days went from the hundreds into the thousands I stopped. I had to stop. Instead, I focused on all the precious moments and memories. It feels better to recount all the lovely treasured moments and memories instead of counting the days without you. Perspective. Whoa. It can sure change things. Again, staying in the beautiful moments is how love works.
Perspective is an interesting thing. It can be profound to say the least. One of my biggest enlightenments and something that has been perhaps the most helpful since your passing was when the boys offered their perspective on grief. They said, “Mom, Dad, instead of trying to figure out how to live without Will, how about figuring out how to live for him.” Two words… “FOR Will” instead of “WITHOUT Will”. What a profound difference it makes. Those words and that message changed things in such a profound and healthy way. Love is a complicated thing but living in the positive feels so much better than living in the negative. It doesn’t change that you’re still not here, but it sure changes how I choose to live and honour you every minute, moment, day, week, month and year. That, my sweet boy, is also how love works.
I read recently a post that a grieving mom made after losing her young son – a boy just a little older than you – and her message resonated so deeply within me. She talked about perspective… how the little things in life outweigh the big things. She said:
“You arrive one day at a place and look back on your life and realize that the little things in your life, weren’t so little after all. They were big things. Those random moments spent talking while you make supper or swinging on the back porch in the late afternoon, talking while you went down to pick up the mail, those “little” conversations after school, those “little” messes, those “little” texts, those “little” goodnights shouted across the hall…. those are not so little to someone who is missing the person whose time on this earth was…. too little.
Losing someone you love instills great perspective when you allow it to. Appreciate the “little” moments with your loved ones, because one day, you may find those moments were not so little after all.”
Perspective IS everything. Love works in such magical ways if your heart is open. Good things will come if you let love in. The reason I miss you so much, Will, is because I loved you so deeply. Grief is love upside down and yet still it all comes back to love.
You continue to be my compass, Will. My barometer for all things good and pure. You are the light in my darkest days, the hand I hold when I’m scared. To smile and cry in the same breath is love. It’s you. It’s “for” instead of “without”, it’s a whole lot of little things instead of a handful of big things, it’s being better instead of bitter.
I love you, sweet Will. I always did and I always will. More than and bigger than a million little buses. You and I both know that’s how love works.
Momxo
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April 10, 2018
My sweet boy,
I think it must be very busy up there. Since the news of the fatal team bus tragedy in Saskatchewan that took the lives of so many my heart has gone back to that dark and scary place in May 2011 when we experienced our own personal tragedy having lost you. There are no words for the magnitude of this loss and I am all consumed with thoughts of all those moms and dads and brothers and sisters and friends and extended family that are having to deal with the horrific loss of these innocent young men, their coaches and their bus driver. Of course, this event has triggered all of the intense feelings of those moments and days after losing you and my broken heart is with all of those parents who have joined the club no one ever chooses to join. Sadly, this club is just way too big.
Heaven has quite a hockey team and the 10 Humboldt Broncos that were called up this weekend is 10 more too many. I think that instead of your skis you might be wearing your hockey skates and have your hockey stick in hand. I imagine you’ve put fresh tape on your stick and created the best tape knob ever on the end. Tape… you always did like the tape… the usual black hockey stick tape (and the occasional coloured one) and the clear tape that would hold up your hockey socks (oh, and take paint off the walls when you used it to put up posters and tape mini sticks to your wall. Ya, that tape). There were rolls everywhere… on your dresser, the coffee table, in the car, in your hockey bag, at the back door, in the wagon on the front porch and occasionally in my purse. The growing tape ball in your hockey bag was pretty special. You know… the one that you would add to after every practice and game by peeling off the tape that held up your socks and adding it layer by layer to the ball of used tape. The last time I saw it, it was about the size of a small soccer ball… that was a lot of tape.
Ten cool boys have just arrived in heaven and I know you’ll find them, Will. Maybe you already have. They’ll be the boys in gold and green jerseys with Humboldt Broncos crests on the front and they’ll all be together. A team of boys who love hockey as much as you love skiing. Take them, Will, to the biggest and the best and the most beautiful hockey rink heaven could have. Show them around up there, and have some fun with them. Listen to their stories and show them where the boy angels sit on the left shoulders of their mom’s down here. Tell them how much their moms will like that. Show them how to let their loved ones know that they’re looking out for them and tell them how much they’ll be missed. Show them how to send signs to those down here who desperately need them and tell them to visit often. Laugh and play cards with them, Will, and break out the mini sticks too. When you’re tired and need a rest share high fives and fist bumps and tell them that they don’t need to do homework in heaven or ever have to go to the dentist.
Those beautiful boys known as The Humboldt Broncos…. the boys in the gold and green jerseys… will be missed so very much and loved forever and ever. Just like you.
Love you, Willy. Like a bus full of millions of hockey sticks. And tape. Oh, and don’t forget to leave your hockey stick out on your heavenly porch tonight. Your new hockey friends will love that.
Momxo
