Knowledge

Sometimes I go hours without thinking about you. And at times, I would swear I'd gone an entire day without considering the fact that you are gone. I'm not sure how true that statement is...my sense of time is so skewed since losing you. Days can seem like hours and hours like days, and there is no telling why that is, but it is, nonetheless.
You know, sweet angel, I feel like I dove pretty deep into grieving for you this summer. But I am beginning to understand that I was comparing my pain and loss to pain and loss I've experienced earlier in my life. And those things...my other losses---well, the degree of loss is just not the same as this. And that is where I misjudged my progress. You see, I thought I had plumbed such immense depths...had ventured so far. But I haven't.
If I was walking down the street one day and someone shot a hole through me (let's just say through my abdomen), I would be able to measure the size of that hole. Doctors and forensic experts could tell me (in terms I wouldn't understand, most likely) the size of the hole--how it related to the size of the weapon and distance from which it was shot...how it was entirely dependent (in terms of size) upon multiple factors such as bullet caliber and body mass---angles and velocity and density and trajectory and other things that I obstinately ignored in science and math classes. And I would nod my head (and understand as much as I could), and I would go about the task of making sure that hole healed up properly.
But I'm not walking around with a bullet-sized hole in me. I am walking around with a you-sized hole in me. And I don't know any forensic expert or doctor or scientist who can measure the size of that hole...or really tell me how to make sure it heals properly. Because, truthfully, although part of living means enduring loss, the loss of you is something which defies analysis.
It is an injury which rejects attempts to fix or heal. It scoffs at description.
I could never measure your life. Your gravestone will show one date: May 2, 2009. That is the day you died. But that doesn't address the size of your life. I can't actually measure your life, because it entails more than the 280-something days you grew inside me. I lost your future...the infancy, the childhood, the adolescence, the youth, the growing independence, the maturing, and all of the stages that would've come after that...
And I lost my dreams for you.
Ironically, although I've lost my dreams for you, the Lord is giving you an eternity that is beyond my wildest dreams. And I am thankful that you rest happily in the arms of Jesus.
But, my sweet darling boy, I wanted to know you so badly. I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to learn your smell . I wanted to memorize your face. I wanted to behold your sweet spirit. I wanted a million things that I'll never be able to articulate. Even my 'wants' refuse measurement.
And I'm so sorry I didn't give you the attention you deserved while you were with me. I know I'll always feel badly about that. I enjoyed you...loved you...longed for you, but I got caught up in the chaos and stresses and tensions of life, and I didn't truly appreciate the time we had together. Or maybe that's not true. Maybe that's the way I feel now...maybe that's the way this works. I don't really know.
I just want you to know that I wanted you. And I still want you. I look at my senior boys sometimes and think about the 18 year-old you'll never be. I think about the hearts you won't break. I think about the sports you won't play. I think about the friends you won't make. I think about the hugs you won't give me. I think about the future you won't plan. And after I think about all of these things you won't ever do, I realize that you're just fine without those things. But I know the world will ache with the loss of you, just as I do. It may be a quiet ache...it may be an ache that goes undetected by most. But I will know.