Never Enough

I really don’t know how I’m supposed to live through this sometimes.  The pain, at times, is unbearable.  I was cleaning up my office today and came across his bank statement from August.  It was unusually thick, so I opened it, knowing what it would do to me.  I did it anyway.

He ate at Taco Bueno.  He shopped at Price Chopper and Wal-Mart.  He went to Freedom Cycles.  There’s something about knowing these things that makes the hurt deeper.  He lived.  In August he was alive and ate and shopped.  He went to his favorite motorcycle shop.  He had friends there that I met at his visitation.  They were pallbearers at his funeral.

This isn’t true, I know, but I feel like his untimely death invalidates his life.  This can’t be true, because so many people were touched by his life.  But, I never got enough of it.  I never had enough of him.  He was the one who always wanted to “go”.  He wanted to be in the Navy from the time he understood what the Navy was.  He wanted to be a Blue Angels pilot.  He wanted to go to Annapolis.  He wanted to travel.  He wanted to fly.  He did most of that.  Annapolis and the Blue Angels pilot didn’t come to fruition, but the rest of it he accomplished.  His desire to “go” made my heart ache for him like none of my other kids.  The other ones have stayed in the same area we are in.  But he always needed to be going somewhere exciting, he always had a goal.  I thought I would die of a broken heart when he went to boot camp.  No contact for 9 weeks except for the occasional letter.  But, we saw him after the 9 weeks were up.  Then, he was off to Pensacola, FL, for “A” school.  He had a phone and would call, but it still didn’t satisfy the ache I had to hug him a bit more often.  Then, he decided to be stationed in Japan for 3 years.  We saw him once a year for 3 years.  Again, sometimes I thought my heart would break with longing for a hug, a smile, a “hi, mom” from him.  I never got enough of him.

He was one of my quieter kiddos.  The conversations we had were usually meaningful and memorable.  He was a bit sarcastic and had an edge to his humor.  But, he was liked by everyone who knew him.  Sometimes you had to dig a bit to get under his sarcasm, but it was worth it.  The day of his death I went into my youngest daughter’s bedroom where she and her sister were comforting each other.  I laid down on the floor to cry with them.  I can’t remember what was said that prompted this comment, but I remember saying “He was the sweetest little ass.”  That pretty much summed him up.  A sweet little ass.  He would do anything I asked of him, but there was always that edge.

I loved him so much.  I miss him so much.