Love

Bryant, here is my latest purchase. I got these stickers for the van and truck. I think you would find them, at least, amusing :) We have been to the beach often and I am searching for a sand dollar. Hopefully I will find one before the summer is out. It is hot lately and you would absolutely be loving the beach with us. I missed you so much at the Assembly even though I know you would not have been super-thrilled to go, I know you always had a smile for me. That got me thinking about you and how you gave me so much in the way of love and happiness and how I have to remember that always. It's so easy to get overwhelmed with the grief of it all, missing you so much and just being so angry and sad. It's all about taking the good with the bad. The blessing of having you in our lives surpasses everything, even the bad. So even missing you so much it hurts until I feel I can almost no longer bear it, I have to remember the good because there was and is still so much.

We met a family in Amherst who has a son in a wheelchair and we showed them the van and talked about the Dynavox and what a pro you were in using it, particularly with your jokes and comments :) And how you could memorize over 200 pages with absolutely no effort and just breeze through them to make sure your voice was heard.

Your name was carried during the Compassionate Friends walk ... a woman I met on-line through CF carried it. I may try and go next year so I can carry it myself. For now, I will do the Manchester Walk though. Your plants are doing very well, by the way, outside your window. And we have plans to meet up with Christine and Hana. We all miss you and I think about you all the time. I did lose it on Saturday on the way home, I couldn't hold it in, just cried and cried thinking this is NOT the way it is supposed to be! Not the way at all. Sunday was a little better but still, you know, it's just unfair to me that you aren't with us. I was picturing us and what we'd be doing and what you'd be doing etc. Of course, with each of my "wind knocked out of me" moments, comes yet another epiphany and I did have one. I realized how much you and your life mean and how much you transcended the silliness, not meaning you weren't silly, that's how you lived your life, with silliness galore, but I mean the silly pettiness that seems to envelope and consume people throughout their lives. You washed all that away and it just wasn't there. Man, it's a fight without you, pal. But I was talking to someone and they were saying what a great life we gave you and I was thinking and then said "he gave it back" you did that. You gave back more than you ever took. The Bible talks about special mightiness you know and I do believe that is what you had. And just being around you seemed to rub off on us :) Or at least me.

So when my heart goes black, which is how it feels sometimes, I think about you and it just brings it back. My moments will continue I am sure, it's like waves that wash over me of sadness. But as I have learned, never turn your back on the ocean or the waves ~ I have to face them, head on. Watch for them, wait for them, respect them and see the absolute beauty and power and awe in the emotions and love that I feel. You made that possible Bryant. And every day I am privy to it, I am able to know that. You most certainly were and are one of my best friends. From that day I met you, when you were born, to now. Your smile never fades or dims and the memory seems to burn stronger, hence, of course, the meltdowns ... but if that brings me closer to you, then so be it.

I love you ~ you remember the special song and phrase I had for you every morning? Well I sing it, say it still, because it's true and always shall be. Between us always,

Mommy