Where are you?…The Beginning #2

In starting this blog, there were lots of thoughts streaming through my head as to where to start. A lot has happened since Brian left. The questions that have swirled around about exactly what to divulge and how to do it have kept me awake many a night. I went with the belief that once I finally got it going, somehow I’d know where to go.

I talk a lot in my head to myself and to Brian and was asking over the weekend where to start after ripping off the proverbial band aid. The answer came very clearly right from Brian himself. I recognize him easily now because he is so point blank in his delivery. (I am rarely point blank) and he “speaks” over my own thoughts as if two distinct thought trains are happening at once. It’s remarkable actually. “The beginning” was the simple answer and with it a download of information and memories rushing back.

My intention in telling and writing is not a story of the anguish of child loss or of every emotion endured though some background is needed for context. So the beginning starts with an explanation of how I began to learn there was more and how things changed for me. That is where the hope lies.

“Where are you?” That was the beginning. That was my personal initial struggle as a mother. In everything we do as a parent, we strive to place our children in safety. You know when they are little and you bring them to school and leave them safely until 3:00 where you pick them up again? Middle school, you drive them where they need to go, you check on them from time to time. As they grow older, they call or text to let you know they are ok. They are safe, you KNOW this. That didn’t happen again starting February 18, 2014. That was not ok, my entire being couldn’t accept it. Death implied that I had to let go and accept that he was somewhere where I had not left him, where I had not safely placed him, seen before, or had any real concept of. Yes? NO. I uttered these words constantly to myself, silently and out loud, where are you, pleading for someone or some entity to give me an answer.

Everything I had been taught to that point told me he was in heaven, he was with God, he was in a “better place”….he was ok. People told me that, my brain tried to tell me that. That to a mother, to this mother, at that moment is and was, well frankly, crap. Unless I dropped him off and checked it out myself, saw God and said, take care of him I’ll be back later to pick him up or call me after dinner, wasn’t good enough for me. So I started looking, everywhere. It made no sense to me that someone with that much energy could be gone in a snap. We had JUST spoken the night before. We had plans. He was my son, I needed to talk to him. I needed to know. I knew he was still somewhere, our tie was was too strong but where? Where was he???

I’m not afraid anymore to say that I did everything to find him. I spoke to clergy. I prayed, I bargained, I asked, pleaded and yelled at God, I talked to my mom who had passed on a couple of years before. I screamed alone in my car until I thought I damaged vocal chords. Three weeks in, I spoke to a medium. I’ve actually spoken to a few over the years for different reasons some better than others but this one experience poignant in many ways. She told me that my life would change, that I would become a ravenous reader on the subject, and that one day I would have experiences if I was willing to. She didn’t know I had three books on my bedside table already. She told me that I was a writer (we’ll see about that) and that I could do what I wanted with the road before me. The sadness in the reading was so thick she cried with me. I don’t think she expected any of what she got.

I cannot say that the flood gates opened at that point but it wasn’t long after that things began to change. It was a process of peeks into something that I didn’t understand and still don’t completely. Its been a series of fantastic, unbelievable, life changing and hope giving events that are honestly difficult to share. I do not know why these things have happened for me or why they do not for other people. It’s not always easy and comes with it it’s challenges. I guess the old adage comes into play, be careful what you ask for. (Ok, it’s wish for but you get the gist).

So now you know how it started, a simple question asked over and over, “where are you?” To be honest, I still don’t have the answer to that question per se. What I do know now is that he and your loved ones are not in some far away place where you cannot “get” to them. They are closer than you ever imagined them to be, probably extremely frustrated that you can’t pick up what they are putting out.

Love is a force, love is energy that cannot be extinguished. Love that was alive and thriving on earth does not die. It continues on in another form. You get to keep the love….