I miss you sweet boy. So much. Some days more than others, but it’s an ache that doesn’t go away. It has just miraculously become more bearable. I’m actually in awe at the process and where I am in it, but I never stop questioning how I’m able to function in life with your absence. It’s as real and impactful as your presence, but your absence is a void that cannot be filled by anyone or anything. Despite how real it is, it can’t be held, it doesn’t make me laugh, I can’t encourage it, support it or celebrate it. I don’t look forward to seeing it and it doesn’t make holidays or family gatherings more enjoyable. It’s the anti-Hagen, and baby, I hate it. So how am I able to do this life? I know for a fact that time doesn’t make it more bearable because I’ve lost all concept of time. To me, time stood still the moment your presence became your absence. Guess that means I’m still 45. But also 100 and somehow ageless. Losing you did that. So how am I able to get up each morning looking forward to the day? How am I able to see Hope and joy and all of the things your absence has tried so hard to steal from me? How baby? You’re there with the One that has the answer to that question, but I know you aren’t going to holler the answer down to me. No phone-a-friend allowed in this situation. I’ve spent over 4 years now moving in a direction, refusing to stay where I found myself when your absence introduced itself to me, because I’be known you were, in some way, walking in front of me. Or beside me. Or behind me. Regardless of your position, I could feel your presence in spite of your absence. I’ve kept moving, questioning the how (never the why) and knowing in my spirit that my strength was poured out from a heavenly vessel, but there was an explanation that I desperately needed. My gifted strength + my love for you + your absence – your presence equaling me actually living instead of just surviving was an equation that I haven’t been able to solve. I’ve somehow known that by helping others I was actively and purposefully loving you, but good grief, it was impossible to explain.
Until tonight.
What happened tonight?
A poem. Read on a television show. About a child lost to a stigmatized and misunderstood disease. And just like that now I can solve the equation. Now I can explain loving you through others. It’s a heartbreakingly beautiful poem that spawned tears that refused not to fall, and I swear it was from you to me.
“When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give to them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live in your eyes
And not on your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands
By letting
Bodies touch bodies
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away”
~Merritt Malloy
I’ve given so much of you away, Hagen, that I’m surprised I have any left to give. But then again, no I’m not. Your greatest attribute was your capacity to love followed closely by your ability to truly see the person standing in front of you. That type of love doesn’t run out. It only grows stronger by duplicating itself with each person touched by it.
The answer to both the question and the equation is the same and it is so simple that I missed it. It’s you. It’s the love you were, the love you are, and despite your absence, the love you will continue to be. I’m living because I am loving you.
Thank you, my sweet boy, for leaving a legacy of love. I’ll never stop missing you but I’m not going to stop giving you away.
Love,
Mom
