Sometimes I flip through the notebook that I keep for writing with my kids when I give them a prompt, and realize that I write a lot of things that I forget that I wrote. I have a lot of beginnings, and a lot of unfinished thoughts. I found one today that hit me so hard I nearly burst into tears, which is the same sort of way I felt on the day I started this. It was unfinished, because I ran out of time, but I think it's a thought I need to finish.
The assignment I gave my kids that day was to choose one line from a random autobiography quickwrite we had done, and do some more writing about that single line. My single line was:
"My uncle died of cancer and our family will never be the same without his laugh"
This is the rest:
I miss you.
It startles me how much sometimes. I can go for long stretches of forgetting, well, not forgetting but of being distracted by life. I will never totally forget, although I guess that we have a way of blocking out things that hurt too much.
When I saw Gigi wish you a happy 65th birthday, or would-be birthday, on facebook, I felt like I stopped, like my heart stopped, froze, remembered the excruciating truth of your gone-ness. Time slowed to a painful drip, and I was unable to move. Sometimes a moment hits you hard, like the cliched punch in your gut. Memory, strong and sudden, has a way of opening up the scars on your heart without mercy, like the wounds are fresh instead of slowly scabbed over and finally bearable.
65? I can't picture you that old, can't believe that would-be number implies all those years without you have gone by. Your laugh filled up a room, rooms that seem empty now without you.
Our family isn't and wasn't the kissing, hugging, I love you sort of bunch. But, I loved you. I love you still, and I would plant the biggest kiss on your prickly cheek if I had the chance to now.
I visit your grave sometimes, which I hope you know, because I can't stand the thought of something as wonderful as you ceasing to exist. I cling to the thought that you are still with us, on some other plane, some realm my brain can't find a way to process or connect to - yet. My heart, and my gut force me to believe you are not gone even though it is so painfully true that our lives will never be the same without you.
On Brandon and Cheryl's wedding day, I cried in the church. Not because I was happy, which I was, but because your memory washed over me like a flood and I felt the sadness of missing you hanging so heavy in the rafters that I couldn't breathe. You should have been there. I hope you were there, but I couldn't help but mourn your physical absence on your son's big day. I know you would have been gushing and glowing, just like Aunt Regina. I sure would have loved to see you strolling her down the aisle, and I would have given anything to see you filling in the gap of that first pew where you absence was felt by many.
I miss you. It startles me how much sometimes, but I really don't know how to stop these moments as they come, the ones that jar me every time with their intensity, the ones that make me wonder how your wife, your children must feel if I feel like this. I guess I never will be able to stop them, and that's ok because remembering you is all that I have now. "Well, isn't that something?"
I miss you.
♥
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