I hesitate to write anything like this because these feelings are not my norm. Sometimes when I put stuff like this people misinterpret it and think I'm in a really dark spot and I'm not. It becomes annoying enough that I would rather not put anything at all, however, these are honest thoughts and I want to share them so I will.
My mom has a very dear friend who lost her only child around seven years ago. It was 2004 and we found out about his accident during one of my wedding showers. Ironically, he and Keith were both taken to the same ICU hall of the same hospital in Austin although years apart. I was browsing through Facebook the other day and I saw an album that she had entitled "Sweet Memories". That's probably where I came up with the title of my last blog, although I did not do it intentionally. Anyway, I looked through the pictures of her son and as I looked it hit me. I thought, "He looks so young! I can't believe how young he looks!" Then my brain stopped. That's how it works with me. I'll be doing something seemingly harmless when a connection is made and then my brain freezes. Everything stops and it's as if everything that has stopped is channeled into a piercing correlation of what that means for Keith and me.
As I scrolled through pictures of Jeff and Jeff with his daughter and Jeff with his parents I got it. I understood what was in my future. He looks young because we are older. Everyone is getting older but him. And Keith. And anyone else that is no longer with us. Their age is frozen and they will never get any older. A friend of ours emailed a picture of Keith and me at the Alamo Bowl when Texas Tech played Iowa back in 2002 or somewhere around there. When I saw it I thought, "Man, we look like babies; we were so young." Eventually that statement will ring true for every picture I have of Keith...and I have a lot. I'll get older and he never will.
Again, just for clarification, these things happen every so often but then I move on. I don't dwell on them and force myself into a funk realizing that Keith will never have another birthday. I continue to move forward and I believe these things are all a part of that process.
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3 comments:
I appreciate honesty like this. It's real and true. When I see interviews with widows of the space shuttles blowing up, I am struck by the contrast. The widows age, but the deceased are frozen in time.
Judy,
My sister, Kathy died 12 years at age 36. She will be forever young. I hope that I can keep up with her when I get to heaven. What am I thinking? I couldn't keep up with her when she was here.
I'm here. I'm reading. I'm relating.
cel
I relate too. And the fact that there will be no new pictures - I really don't like that. The only pictures you get are the ones you already have. Every now and then, someone will send you one that you haven't seen before... but with my case, there aren't very many of those.
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