Cherish Everything

Lately, I’ve been able to think about him without crying, even talk about him without crying.

Well, sometimes…

It amazes me: the tears seem to be self-replicating.  They just never seem to run out.  However, they are less insistent.  Less like a waterfall, more like a softly rolling river.  At times I find myself floating along, carried by the current, at other times I rest in an eddy, seemingly content to be idle.  I have come to the point, finally, where I’m less likely to judge my feelings and instead just acknowledge, accept and sit with them. 

It’s a good place to be.

I’ve been thinking more about what I’m missing and less of what I missed.

Neither holds any joy, however.   

So, I try to turn my attention to what I did have: to the memory of seeing his face for the first time, and his perfect little features; his ruddy cheeks, tiny fingers and downy hair.  And to the memory of his face again, after 19 years, and having it feel like it was the first time.  How it felt to have his grown-up, man-like frame engulf me in a hug.  His eyes, his beautiful eyes that looked so like my own.  I look lovingly at the pictures from our one precious face-to-face meeting.  Him and I, arm in arm, with smiling faces and glowing eyes.  I’m so grateful to have them, so grateful.

Here’s an odd confession: I’ve actually come to value the flush of my face and the heaviness in my chest that happens immediately before the tears start to flow, because, in reality, I want to cherish everything I can that has anything to do him whatsoever.