Returning to School as a Starfish

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

May 18, 2023

My dearest, sweet Will,

It is May again and your Angel date is approaching. I need not look at a calendar to know that it is soon because I can feel it. The days feel different; off kilter, off axis. My sleep is disturbed, my mind is pre-occupied, my focus distant. I’m somewhere else. I am with you x a million.

Quite simply, I miss you, Willy. There are no words on earth that can quantify just how much I do. You will always be the brightest star in the nighttime sky and my biggest reason to find my way in this world. You are love and hope x a million and on days like this I close my eyes and allow my tears to fall. Only then can I go to that place in my heart where your little light cannot be extinguished. It is in that place that love turns sadness into smiles and hope into strength. It is here where I find gratitude in every single ordinary day that we shared and where I am reminded that grief and sadness are really just the price of love… x a million.

I’ll be looking for you this weekend, Will. I’ll find you in all sorts of places; I always do. I will look at your bright little star in the nighttime sky and I’ll stare long enough to see you twinkle right back at me. 

I miss you and I love you, sweet boy. More than a bus and 12 years x a million.

Momxo