Safe in my heart

I mention this out loud only once a year.  This is the day my son Wyatt died.  The day my world stood still.  The day my world stood still.  When everything I knew and cared about seemed worthless.  Knowing, right then, part of me died.  Two years ago, today.

There are some things I remember with such clarity it stings.  Holding him.  The nurse coming to take him away.  Running into the wall face first and laughing hysterically.  Sitting on the front porch and knowing it was minus twenty and not feeling the cold.  The faces of friends, their shock, the anguish.  And remembering not a single word they spoke.  The drive to the funeral home.  The total emptiness.  The gift of Alex simply accepting it as a fact.  My daughter looking at me, asking where he went.  And not having an answer.

There are gaps too.  Enough pain killers can do that.  Afternoons slept away, staring out windows.  Waking up, seeing the sun, and rolling over.  Not answering a single doorbell yet looking at flowers all over the house.  The food I never ate.  I was too doped up to care.  I couldn't make sense of it.

It seemed to go in slow motion yet it went way too fast. 

And now I'm here, two years out.  The pain is still there.  I've come to accept it will always be.  I used to see him everywhere and some ways I still do.  In the nameless little boy at the grocery, the jingle of a wind chime, in the wisp of a wind, a gull at the beach.  All have the potential to send me reeling back.

But I'm here.  Now.  There are days when I catch myself being happy, truly happy, without the pang of guilt.  And I'm starting to be OK with that.

I have no pictures for this post.  I have tried but I simply can not.  Can not will myself to go to that file in my computer and look.  I'm not there yet. 

So after today, I will say no more.  Back he will go, tucked safely into my heart, where he belongs.