Peaceful Today Better Tomorrow

     Austin you have set me free. Free of self doubt, free of judgments. Free of spelling errors or silly similes. You have set me free. So let’s do this buddy. Let’s just write it all down and see where it takes us. It may not always be pretty but it’s ours. Let’s just write it all down. All of it. Everything.

                Some days all I see is death. It’s in the nursery rhymes Chloe and I sing. ‘Please don’t take my sunshine away’? Really? ‘And down will come baby, cradle and all’? Really? Not exactly the best words for a grieving mother to hear. Some days all I notice is the discolored grass. Some days all I know is I can’t smell Austin anymore. His perfect baby smell. Scent is the strongest link tied memory and I cant find his. We spent too many days in the hospital at the end and all his dirty clothes in the hamper at home smell bad….not like him. Some days Austin is all Chloe talks about, and instead of being happy he is a part of her memory I am sad she keeps asking

“Why”?

“Austin’s in heaven, Chloe.”

“ Why”?

“Because, he went to be with God.”

“Why?”

“Because it was just his time.”

“ Why?”

“I don’t know sweetheart.”

 “I want to touch him.”

“I do too honey, I do too.”

 Usually at this part of the conversation I’ll ask her to tell me what color the ball is, or ask her to sing her ABC’s, but as of recent, I sit in the heavy silence. I let it linger. I sit and I let it wash over me. Snuff the air out of my lungs. All to familiar tightening in my chest. Chloe always senses this and says

“You sad? You sad?”

“ Yeah, sometimes mom gets sad because she misses Austin, but its okay Chloe.... Austin is in our hearts”

….But my heart is broken. I have to show her healthy pain….but all I want to do is scream and smash my fists on my steering wheel. All I want to do is scream until my voice is gone and the physical euphoria of exhaustion kicks in. I want to hide and I want to throw a big middle finger up. I know I could, and no one would fault me. I let my head wild run with that thought. I swim in that thought. I push it around in my mouth. It is so close it is palatable. I can taste it. Just let it all go. Throw up the middle finger….F you world. But when I spin with that idea, all I feel is darkness. All I feel is rage. All I feel is alone. All encompassing cynical darkness. And I can’t. It’s unnatural to me. I don’t want to take a rope and lasso a rain cloud and drag it around over head….I like to golf too much. I like to swim at my dads pool too much. I like to take Chloe to the park too much, I like to sit and have a cocktail outside with my husband too much….and I can’t very well do that in the rain……Well…………I won’t do that in the rain.