Missing You

I have been thinking of you so much lately. Maybe moreso since Ashour and Max visited the other day. Maybe because it is summer and you should be in and out of the house, skateboarding, being with friends and learning to live your life with no school to start in September. Or maybe it is simply because I miss you more and more each day. Perhaps it is the constant questions from people asking why I am more sad today than yesterday. It seems that people do not understand that I am sad each and every day; however, some days it is harder to hide away behind a smile or a light attitude. Sometimes the heaviness of missing you is so great that I cannot hide it away. It will forever be this way. I cannot understand how someone can think that I will heal from losing you or that it will get easier for me. These are people who have not lost a child or lost a child as tragically and suddenly as I did. So today, missing you is leaking from my eyes as I cry in grief and just because sometimes it gets to be too much. Tomorrow is a new day and I will rise in the morning, always with you on my mind and I will bravely dry my tears, tuck my pain away and start my day. I heard a quote the other day: “Everyone is afraid of dying, until you lose a child…then you’re afraid of living”. I cannot say that I am afraid of living. However, it is most definitely harder to live without you. To learn to carry this heaviness. Who knew grief was so heavy and so permanent? My life is now divided into two parts: The part before this and the part after this. I cannot even remember my life before this. What was it like to not have to carry this heaviness? To live without his emptiness? The old me is almost like a foreigner. I will never return to who I was before this. Losing you and walking this journey has forever changed me. I have learned who was meant to remain in my life and who was not. I have learned who my friends are and who I thought were friends were actually just imposters or too selfish to walk alongside me. So for this, I am grateful. However, I would gladly return to who I was before this, if only to have one more day, one more hour with you. One more chance to hug you, to tell you how much I love you and how proud I am of you. How I will always love you and I will always be proud of you. I love you, Monkey and I miss you more.