20 Years

I was busy working this morning on sending emails and request letters out to plan not 1 but 2 AFSP World Survivors of Suicide Loss Days, one in Nashville and one in St Croix on November 22.  Time is quickly shrinking and things must get going!  I looked at the date on the bottom of my computer screen and stopped all movement for what seemed like an eternity.  10/8/14.  I was immediately taken back to Saturday, October 8, 1994 the day I married Jared's Dad.  It was almost like in the movies where you feel like you are being time warped backwards.  Things flashed so fast through my head I was dizzy.  Moving from Tennessee to St. Croix, years and visits he made to see Jared in Tennessee and watching him play basketball and soccer, exchange visits in Marion, pulling up in Illinois to drop him off at meeting points, his funeral, Us moving to our house we shared across from the church we married in, bringing Jared home, working in the yard, moving into our first house and our wedding day.  I am sure it wasn't more that a minute in time but it was a flood of memories.  Why?  The ironic thing was it was all happy memories of Dan.  Not a single sad or bad memory.  Message from above?  I don't know.  Lord knows I had a truck load of bad memories that could have come to me.  I guess it was just a moment that was to remind me that time goes by so quickly that I need to enjoy and hang on the good and let all the bad drift away from my memory.

I have had a lot of emotions in the last couple of weeks.  Some days I just collapse in tears while others my tears remain to fall only on the inside.  I am glad we can organize these events on November 22.  I guess it is kind of a gift I am giving myself for my birthday.  A day of Hope and Healing.  Maybe it is Jared's gift to me.  Whatever it is, it will be a great one.

I am trying to create a birthday/ Christmas list for the family this year and all I can do is cry.  Seems silly but that is what is happening.  So I am taking a break from that to cry while typing this.

I certainly would not trade my life with Rich at all, but I would give everything I have and I am to have Jared back.  My peace with that is that I will one day be with him eternally and right now he and his dad are spending some time together that each desperately wanted but most often was denied here on earth.