Tonight's picture was taken in November 2008 on the last birthday I ever celebrated with Mattie. We were several months into Mattie's cancer treatment and past his first limb-salvaging surgery. He worked out a plan in advance to make me a model magic cake in celebration of my birthday. This shot was taken just after he had proudly presented to me. The cake still sits today on a bureau at home.
It is a moment I will never forget, and one I will never have the chance to experience again. Mattie died in September 2009 two months before my next birthday. At the time this shot was taken, never did I imagine that I would not have another chance to do something like this with Mattie.
In subsequent years when my birthday comes around, I focus less on the number of years I have been alive, and instead focus on the number of years I now live without Mattie.
Today is the 3,227th day since Mattie died, and with his loss, I also lost a large part of me, of who I am, of how I look at this world and at others, and what I thought my life was going to be.
I came across this picture in one of my bereavement groups on Facebook. Yes, I belong to a bereavement group on Facebook. Actually, I belong to three groups now (I had belonged to more but dropped some since they were not helpful). The is a statue in Geneva called "Melancholy" by Albert Gyorgy.
It was posted in one of the bereavement groups telling us that July is Bereaved Parents Month. That's not the kind of "let's Celebrate the month of...." that you would ever hear on the radio or see on a newscast. I researched the artist a little and all the genuine sites I found about him were in foreign languages I cannot read. Not sure what the impetus or motivation was for this artist to create this piece, but dollars to donuts, he has some insights into loss.
What I do know is that visually this resonated with me an allegorical depiction of how life feels sometimes for me after having lost my child to cancer. Words cannot begin to describe what it feels like and lets be honest, most normal parents in this world do not want to or cannot even go there and begin imagining what life is like without their child. It hits at all times and unpredictably, and literally feels as though a significant portion of oneself is literally missing, forever.
I wish I were a poet or talented story teller who could better describe this feeling, but then again, I am not sure I would want anyone else to ever experience this kind of feeling.
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