Out of the Blue

Some days are marked on the calendar with a sad face. Those are the days I know for certain are going to be extra grief-y, more difficult, blue days. Birthdays. Most holidays. Death-iversary. 

Some days, however, hit out of the blue.                                                           

My daughter is home for a visit. The other day, we were going through some boxes. Memories. Pictures. School work and report cards. Stories written in clunky kindergarten letters, phrases, and imaginations. It was lovely. I had prepped my heart for the job at hand. I was ready. 

I don't do pictures anymore, but I loved sitting on the floor of my office, listening to K oohing and ahhing, laughing and sighing. Occasionally she shared a particularly interesting photo (in the olden days we actually printed pictures kids), and I was good. 

I was fine. It was fine. Everything was fine.

But then, K laughed. Hard. She pulled out the 'self-portrait' drawing Robbie had done, crayon, that chunky manila paper only used in early elementary. It was so sweet, his giant head taking up the entire page. Still, all was well, until she passed me the folder that held it. On the front was a newspaper cover page of Robbie and I. 

My heart stuttered. In the picture, my eyes are locked on Robbie and he is looking my way with such trust, 100% certain that whatever it was he was asking, I would have the answers. 

Grief wrapped around my heart, squeezed tightly, and stole the air from my lungs. Out of the blue, my wall of strength crumbled, and I was missing my son like it was the first time. Every memory I'd pushed down, every moment I'd fought against the gaping hole of his absence suddenly rushed back, and a waterfall of motherly despair surged over me.

Ahh, grief. 

Out of the blue, I was broken. 

I quickly tucked the blue crayon drawing back inside and did my best to cloak it inside my mind; but, it was etched deeply.

I was right there again, kneeling beside my not quite five year old son as he explained and asked me for help. If possible, I would have reached up and stroked his soft buzz cut, rubbed my fingertips on his little ears and lobes, and breathed in the scent of his neck. My body remembers all of those sensory feelings as powerfully as my heart.

Later, I took the folder out again, after more sessions of laughter on our stroll down Memory Lane. 

The waterfall of pain ran its course, and became a softly running river of times spent with my son when he was a baby, a toddler, a young man discovering who he was and what he wanted to be when he was grown. 

Out of the blue, my heart had been raked across the gravel; but, slowly and surely I was able to smile without tears and with the gentling softness of my privilege to be Robbie's Mom. 

I'm glad my daughter and I had the time to remember together. 

Today, the folder is pinned above my office desk, and brings a smile each time I glance. 

Out of the blue, the broken pieces have been glued back in place by love... until the next time.