A letter to my son, on his birthday

Here it is again. It’s your birthday. One more year with you gone. One more birthday without you here to celebrate. How has this much time passed with you not here? How have we managed to live a life without you in it? When we started this awful, unplanned journey, it certainly didn’t seem possible, and it hasn’t been easy. Nothing can prepare a person, especially a parent, for this kind of loss. It’s like losing the rhythm of our heartbeats.  We lost the tempo in our steps. We lost an anchor that helped to keep us tethered to the earth.  But each day, we get up, we get dressed, go to work, take care of business, and do what we do to keep moving. Keep moving forward. Breathe. And that’s the part most people don’t think about – the breathing. How hard it is to catch your breath when all the air is gone, and you’re flailing, and you’re drowning, and you have to remember – in, and out. In, and out. Keep breathing. Keep moving forward. Then you wake up one day, and your step seems steadier. The load seems a little bit lighter, and it’s easier to breathe. It gets more bearable. There are still those days that knock us flat, like we’ve been run over by a boulder. And again, the air is gone, and we have to remember to breathe. But there are good days, too – the days we think about something you did that made us smile, or laugh out loud. We think about jokes you told, and the stories you told about your friends. The ketchup on the living room wall, and the liver on the ceiling fans. . . The poppers you tied in every conceivable place in the house – every door (and even the toilet lid) was a booby trap for months. We remember sitting down at the pond with a good fire going, and fishing poles in hand, and how much you enjoyed that – how much we enjoyed that - so many times. We think about your smile, and your laugh, and that ornery twinkle in your eye when you were thinking up some more mischief to get into. We remember your kindness, your work ethic, and your honesty. But mostly we remember your love. Those are the good days, and I’m so thankful we had that time, and all these memories to help keep you in our hearts. Those memories keep you in our lives, every day. And it’s the knowledge that you’re in Heaven, and that you’re waiting for us there, that makes it all bearable. We know in our hearts we’ll see you again, when it’s our time to go. And what a reunion that will be! I can’t wait to hear your laugh again – see that big, beaming smile of yours, and feel the warmth of a big hug. So, until we get there, we’ll keep celebrating your birthdays here, because we know the greatest gift of all is coming. Not today, but it’s coming, and it’ll be amazing. Happy birthday, Charlton. We love, and miss you so very much.