Sometimes it seems as if I am living in a novel. I am just a character in it. And Isaac was a main character that was left behind in an earlier chapter. He played his role but it ended. Now he is a part of my life as novel but the story moves on without him. Each day a short boring chapter with a small epiphany of remembrance and grief every now and then. But softer now. Less intense. Story balanced between a gentler pain and even happiness at seeing people I love who are still in my book.
He is called out again on a regular basis like an event that shaped the protagonist’s life. Protagonist? Did I say that? Am I a good force in the story? I don’t know. How good can I be leaving my son back on an earlier page in the book? Can I be good if I have found a way to live without a major character in my life novel?
I may really be the antagonist. A villain because I no longer think of my son every minute of the day. Because I have made some room for life as well as death? Aren’t I supposed to always be in mourning for his loss?
Well, I am. But it has morphed. The pain that is. It is no longer white hot. It sometimes even cools to be just a small aching inside my gut that could pass for simple depression. A basic tenderness that is always there but is so much smaller now than it was before. A sadness that puts a thin gray shroud over full happiness
A grief I have been learning to live through with the help of others like Compassionate Friends. .
I perhaps have found a new existence balancing on that one remaining foot so now I am not always aware that I have lost the other leg. It is there always. That is the nature of phantom pain after all. But the excruciating pain that was first there when Isaac was ripped from me has given way slowly. Almost imperceptibly as the days go by and the book in which I am a character goes on to its end.
And what will that end be? Don’t know but I think about it often. Will I see Isaac in some other realm? Will he and I be joined in some spirit and be glad in each other’s presence? Or will I just close my eyes and be gone. The grief finally ended completely?
Will my novel life come to a crashing finale? Or will I just fade into a chapter in someone else’s life? To be mourned for a while and let go as life moves on? As I have moved on from death and excruciating pain to whatever it is my life is now. Balancing. On one foot but at least balancing and not falling over every day.
For that I am grateful.
If this excerpt from my book Standing on One Foot resonated with you, please feel free to go to www.standingononefoot.com to order a no cost copy of the book Standing on One Foot. As a result of generous donations there is not charge for the book or shipping. Just put TCF in the promo code for a no cost copy.
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