It’s been a rough week in bereaved parenthood for me. My carefully held together spirit is shattered under the slightest circumstances sometimes and I had a particularly difficult set of them this week. I am getting quicker at gluing the pieces back together, but they never set completely before something breaks them apart again. A matter of business in my personal life required collecting data about the last year, and that material was peppered throughout Beckett’s documented journey. I had to go through old posts, pictures, and messages with a fine toothed comb to find relevant information. It’s been hard. Generally I skim the surface of Beckett’s memory rather than diving deep because diving deep leaves me gasping for breath.
All of this is to say I found writing a regular blog post daunting this week. It takes a special kind of day and tone in my life for me to write about Beckett, and I can’t imagine writing about anything else after all the data collecting. I try to post once a week and regularly that isn’t hard to do. But a few days ago I had decided to forgo getting something pulled together and to instead recollect myself for next week. That is until while going through everything I found a copy of the letter I had written for and read at Beckett’s memorial service. I have always wanted to share it, and it seemed like fitting timing to post something from the past after a few long days of living there.
“January 21st, 2017
Beckett,
Today we are holding a memorial in your honor. People who you loved and who love you are all here, and I am so grateful I have them to remember you with. I have written about your journey since the beginning and I always found it came naturally. But I found myself reluctant to sit down and begin this particular exposition. Our relationship has changed to being beyond the tangible of my plain senses, and I am having to learn how to hone these new, other ones. It makes reflecting on you different than it was before.
It strikes me as I began to write to you this time that I used to address the world around you in my updates. I used to tell them what was happening to you. But now I write directly to you most of the time. With you gone, you are the one to send information to, because you have crossed in to a different place now. These letters are my soul calling out to yours in hopes that you enjoy getting letters from home.
In them, I tell you that you were so beautiful. And that you were so loved. That your triumphs are still yours, and that I am so proud. I tell you it’s okay. And I tell you that it’s not. I tell you that I miss you, and that I am sorry. I tell you how scared I was, and that sometimes I still am. I tell you that life is different. I tell you that you have made it better.
People say that you were brave. But it wasn’t bravery that carried you as far as it did. It was strength of will. You fought, you waged. You came in to the world as simple as we ever are, with no understanding of how to be brave, just a baby. Only with the willpower to move forward. You were a warrior during your lifetime. Tested so many times and always carrying on. When I feel my frustration that your body failed you, I am reminded that in the end, all of our bodies fail us. I can’t be comfortable with how quickly yours did, that you were only given four and a half months when most of us are given decades. Regardless, it remains the truth. And something I have learned through this experience with you is that it is not the duty of a parent to define their child’s legacy, but to embrace the destiny their child did have for humanity. This was never what I wanted yours to be. But for it to have meaning, I must accept it.
You never went to school, but you made friends. You never fell in love, but you had girlfriends. You never opened a birthday present or drove a car or looked upon the sunrise with your own eyes. But you also never knew heartbreak. And you never knew jealousy or hatred. Your hospital room was filled with love and the best people in the entire world. I struggle hard with what you had to go through and what it came to. But I have been reminded time and time again that your life was filled with love. And that is a wonderful thing. That is your legacy. Pure love, and a beacon of remembrance that we should appreciate what we have, hold those we care for tight, and never take for granted the air we breath and the beat of our heart. That we should remember that life is so good to us, and that even when it isn’t, it is worth living. That we should be patient. And kind. That we should rise above the odds and also fall with grace.
As your mother, I find more so than remembering you, I am inclined to just continue loving you, the way I did from the moment I knew you were expected. With natural, flowing ease of emotion. I have learned a lot of things about motherhood during my time with you, and I believe my greatest responsibility to you is to love you. No longer near, but far. To carry you forward in my heart and in my everyday I have before me. For us, your existence goes beyond remembering you. You are in your sister’s laughter. You are in your father’s music. You are in my every sentence. We will never stop wishing you were here with us, but still, you are a part of us.
I still see your path Beckett, it still intertwines with mine. And frequently it leads me to a place I had never considered before. It’s dark. It’s quiet and often it’s frightening. But if I walk forward long enough, I come upon a luminous pool that glows and shimmers and flows with energy. It isn’t a pool of water, but color and sights and sounds I have never imagined before. It lights up all the dark corners and makes them beautiful and fantastic. You are in this place my son. Iridescent and wild and free. Untamable and remarkable. You open my eyes and my soul. Magic and light. You have set one of my feet in to the cosmos. I will follow you where you have gone. And I will love you fiercely throughout. Thank you for being in my life, thank you for changing it, and for being so absolutely perfect. During our earthly time together, my instinct was not anger or frustration. It was a desire to lift you from the dangerous fight you faced and take you away to safety. You’re safe now, and so much more. You deserved everything, and I am glad that you finally have it.
Loving you forever, Mom”
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