The Music/The Dance

When I am missing you,

I find you.

In the music.

You always said I could find you there.

I hear the drumbeat.

That is you.

That is where I find you.

In the music.

 

I thought I knew music.

But you taught me more.

The connection was made.

We shared the love of music

In our souls.

Our souls knew music.

I didn’t even realize that until more recently,

when I looked back at our past correspondence.

You’d send me something to listen to,

and I’d send you something to listen to as well.

 

The music.

 

I miss you,

so I find the music you appreciated,

you enjoyed,

you resonated with.

And I play that music.

And my soul resonates with it too.

I close my eyes, and I move.

To the music,

to the instruments,

to the drumbeat.

The dance in me comes out.

Interconnected with the music.

The dance I learned so long ago.

I feel it come alive.

As I hear the music.

Your music.

 

 I feel something as I move.

 I feel me.

 I feel life.

 I feel truth.

 I feel that all that matters is this moment.

This moment.

The music,

You,

Me.

The dance.

My arms reach and curve,

My legs support me,

step around, and turn me.

I am strong.

 

And then the music slows.

I see you. 

We come together,

and dance.

A slow dance.

Mother and Son.

The one I planned to dance one day with you

at your wedding.

Slowly stepping.

Slowly circling.

It is eternal. 

The love between us is there.

Is forever.

I know you are with me.

Because you tell me, “I’m here, Mom.”

I have heard you.

Time stands still.

I am fine.

I am peaceful.

I am with you.

And you are with me.

 

When I am missing you,

I know where to find you.

You are not far.

You are right here.

In the music.

Healing

(Excerpt from Look Around; A Mother's Journey from Grief and Despair to Healing and Hope)

Marianne Williamson defines a miracle as a shift in perception. If this is true, then the new perspective I have now gained on this journey of grief is a miracle. Healing is a miraculous process. And the way I now look at Eric’s transition, as well as at all the events that have since unfolded, is truly miraculous. There was no way for me to see the possibility of healing on the day the sheriff and coroner pounded on my front door. There was no way for me to understand when a few people told me that maybe Eric’s work was done (and I never recommend saying that to someone who is newly bereaved). There was no way for me to have any reason to believe I could ever climb out of the deep dark abyss when Joe, Nicholas, Jessica, Vanessa and I stood at Eric’s gravesite at the cemetery to bury his ashes. There was no way I could ever imagine feeling joy again when all the friends and family finally went back to their homes to continue living their lives, and we had no idea how to get through the next day.

But this is the miracle. And it doesn’t happen a week later, or a month later, or not necessarily even a year later. It is a gradual process, like the rising sun. This kind of healing cannot be learned in a crash course. It cannot be binge watched. It’s not meant to. It is meant to drop in like rose petals from heaven, one at a time, day by day, until one day you have a flower, then a bouquet, then a rose bush, then a garden. It is meant to be contemplated, and eventually, savored. It is meant for you to allow yourself, on the days where you feel like you’ve tripped into the abyss again, to just be, and then trust yourself to work your way back out. This is the shift in perception. This is the miracle. I can choose to stay in a dark pit forever. Or, I can choose to climb out of the pit, huffing, puffing, grimacing, and sweating, and stand on the Earth, with the trees and the sky above, with the sun warming my face, and begin to catch the rose petals that fall from above. This is what I chose. I chose to heal.

 

In My Mind's Eye

 

Photo by T. Preston

(Written a year and a half after my son's transition.)

Again.

I am here.

I am right here.

I see your dark eyes.

They watch me.

Your eyes smile.

You are pensive.

I remember that pensive look.

But you are not right here.

Right in front of me.

I reach out.

But my hand does not exist in the same world

as your face,

your eyes.

There is a space.

How do I cross that space?

How do I connect my hand with your face?

I long to touch you.

I long to run my fingers across the facial hair along your jawline,

or down the bridge of your nose,

or across your dark eyebrows.

I long to tug on your earlobe.

Just the gentlest little tug.

Just like I used to do when I drove you in the car

when you were younger.

You would look at me and ask me why I did that.

I would say, "That means I love you."

That space.

I wish to cross that space between the land of time

and the world of no time.

That beautiful place.

That place of bliss.

That place where we were together even before we came here.

Home.

That home.

The one where you are right now, 

and where I will meet you again.

Some day.

One day.

When it is time.

Until then, I watch you.

In my mind's eye.

I see you.

You look at me.

I smile at you and you smile at me.

You are quiet.

I am still.

We are apart...

Yet we are connected.

By that silver thread.

My heart to yours.

It is unseverable.

We remain linked.

Locked.

Together.

Forever.

I am here.

I see you.

I see you.

In my mind's eye.

Life as it "should" be

This is the preface to my book, "Look Around; A Mother's Journey from Grief and Despair to Healing and Hope."

Most of us have an assumption about life. We assume it will be a charmed life, despite a few challenges. We assume we will grow up, and maybe go to college. We assume we will get a job that we like, find a partner, and get married. We assume we will, if we choose, have as many kids as we want, and that they will be healthy. We assume they will grow up, play baseball, take dance and music classes, become educated, get married and have as many kids as they want. And naturally this means we will have grandchildren and spend years with them, enjoying them, watching them grow and graduate. We will grow old, and one day we will die peacefully with our loving kids and grandkids around us. It is assumptive. For many, we assume this will be our life. Despite the hardships – financial woes, breakups, job losses or unplanned career changes – we assume we will get past all that and continue on with our planned life. And anything really bad – plane crashes, natural disasters that wipe out thousands, mass shootings - those things only happen to other people.

Unless one day there is a knock on your door and you open it to find the county sheriff and the county coroner standing there to tell you that your son has died.

And, from one second to the next, the world as you knew it has ceased to be. The life you assumed you would have has shattered. Nothing will ever be the same again.

How? How could this happen? How could this happen to us?

This is the story of my journey through that assumptive world, and beyond, into grief, despair, rage, and eventually healing and hope. This is the story about the grief journey my family and I took since my son’s transition to the other side. This is the story of my own spiritual journey.

And this is the story of Eric, a model son, a loving sibling, a loyal friend, and a musician with a heart of gold, who left his physical body at age 24, and how he came here to change us, to affect us, to make us better, and to remind us to look around and appreciate the wonders of this beautiful world that we take for granted.