Jessie would be starting his senior year in high school today.  Would he have grown tall or been short like his father?  Would he have been as fiercely handsome?  Would his sensitivity shone through, his essence been bold, and his hands have been large?  It is a relief to me today that I am in a place where I can imagine such questions.

I hope I would have raised him to not smoke as much pot as his father or drink as much as I did when I got pregnant. Although, the odds would’ve been slim, for at this time, I was a full-blown teenage alcoholic with undiagnosed mental instabilities in an on-going traumatic upbringing whose partner was on his way to becoming a petty drug dealer.  With a trumped hand like this, my instincts tell me it would’ve been rough for him.

~

His dad and I still managed to have hearts of wonder, desires to live “right”, and a deep, albeit tenuous, love for one another.  The instabilities always outweighed our good intentions though.  Eventually, our own separate failure to face the truth divided us.  We grew up and traveled far away from each other.  My heart still feels a connection for what was shared (and lost).

Okay, I just choked up.  You know, the cheek tightening, ugly grimaced, eye-flooding type of emotional onset?  It feels inconvenient while I’m trying to exude a sense of wholeness around a desperately dark circumstance.  They still come.

~

Fast forward twenty plus, years later:  here I am hunched over my computer.  Two decades of counseling, nine therapists later, multiple diagnoses (most incorrect and eventually some amazing help), two treatment centers and several psychiatric bungalows are in arrears. I am a grown woman with long-term recovery from addiction, codependency, and mental illness from an off-the-charts traumatic childhood.  I held firmly to the viewpoint we were victims of a horrible crime and I refused to have a victim mentality. This stance shaped me to be a woman of compassion, tolerance, and eventual even-handed objectivity (although time shaped this last aspect – it was shorter in coming).  Now, I have a moment in space and time to share a few things due to my rare experiences.

Grieving has become a specialty of mine.  Seriously, I think there is an artful flow to it.  I decided early on grief (rage, spit, and throwing fits) is God too.  How could it not be?  If He is omniscient than He is I and I am He.  Therefore, He is every ounce of my being and what flows from it – body/mind/spirit (including the snot on all those tissues).  This freedom helped me shed my AAA personality and get right down to the gut wrenching, body-fluid-flying, hysterical experience of full blown RAGING at his killers.  And, I did it, over and over and over again.  And again.

~

Time passed.  With every release, a bit of the divine filled the spaces where the caged heaviness of fury had physically weighed me down.  The numbed out grey lens I viewed the world through began to slowly welcome color again.  Activity helped, allotting myself certain amounts of time each day to feel the pain salved the deep aching, and most of all, refusing to let anyone tell me what my truth was saw me through.  Canned platitudes and minimizing anecdotes sent me into a deeper rage than how I felt about his killers at times - friends fell away. 

Each step built the mountain of strength I have today.  Blind hate gave way to serenity.  Judgment transformed into objectivity.  Freeing myself from the agony awoke my soul and informed my spirit.

~

Eventually, my son was returned to me.  His body wasn’t recovered; it was his essence that began speaking to me.  I have finally evolved to a place where I know nothing, or no one, ever truly took him away…not even death.  This was closure, the bookend to years of suffering through a loss I hid, even from myself at times.  My memorial is ongoing.  It is through acts of kindness for my daughter especially when I am infuriated with her, art I create in various mediums, and sharing about him so I don’t have to carry the charge of it alone any more.  For that, I sincerely thank you for listening.

I have been asked do I forgive the men who murdered him?  My answer is, "it is not my position to forgive them."  That piece of soul business remains between them and Jessie.  For me, the connections for forgiveness run linearly between the victim and the victimizer.  My piece of life work was to grieve the loss of my son.  And while I will always experience pangs of emotions that arise, today I welcome them. 

I feel immensely blessed my Jessie has returned to me, we talk all the time.