Time Keeps Moving On
It is so easy to get swept up and away. All I have to do is blink and another year has gone by. My stomach aches from laughing, my eyes are dry from crying, and my mind is hazy from all the moments that have imprinted on me. Whether I like it or not, time keeps moving on.
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I remember the day that you died. I remember how the earth shifted under my feet and time slowed to a stop at the same time your heart did. I felt it before I knew it. Before the cops showed up at my doorstep looking for me, trying to find someone who loved you and cared about you, my soul already knew that you had left this earth. It took quite a while for my body, heart, and mind to catch up.
In that moment I didn’t know how I was ever going to breathe again, laugh again, or live another moment knowing I couldn’t hug you again. Everyone told me that with the passage of time it would get easier, and those always seemed like the meanest words. Who ever wants it to get easier to be without the people who make your heart beat so deeply.
We went to the fair last weekend. The one you always used to take us to when we were kids. Wearing your cool leather jacket and shades, smoking a Kool Mild cigarette, and always with a strut… you were the coolest dad to stroll down the fairway with hand in hand. You always won the games. I always left with a big stuffed animal. We always ate mini donuts and then I'd get sick from going on the rides, but my heart would be fluttering you and would be smiling and my little heart couldn't love a moment more than it did right then.
Rocky pulled the wagon and Kellan had his arm around Presley. Dakotah was taking pictures of the fair's skyline when Jameson ran into a group of his friends before we even made it to the rides. His eyes softly asked us if it was okay for him to grow up and away from us a little bit. Rocky ushered him away and I stressed as our tribe shrunk by one. Where we would find him? Would he be okay? Inside I think I was crying because my two year old was walking away to be the teenager he so quickly became. Rocky assured me with a nod and a smile that Jameson would survive a few moments away from us just fine, and in his strong soft smile with no words he told me what I never ever really want to hear…. This is life and time keeps moving on, whether we like it or not.
Dakotah and Kellan feverishly waited for tickets and stood in long lines just to ride the rickety Zipper… a major rite of passage for an eleven year old boy and his younger aspiring brother. I worried where Jameson was and if Dakotah and Kellan would survive the twisting and turning of the carnival ride. Presley gobbled up as much parade candy as his little fingers could grab and majorly boycotted the wagon or hanging out on my hip. He wanted to run wild and free… and as far away from us as possible. In that moment I felt powerless and helpless and weapy, and blessed and whole and complete to be surrounded by so much love and life. My pain was equal to my joy and I knew that I was missing these moments as quickly as each second passed to the next. And in the next moment I caught a glimpse of him, looking just like you dad.
There Jameson stood, in a crowd of his peers. He was smiling and laughing and strutting the way 13 year old boys do. Only he looked just like you. The way he smiled and touched his chin. The cool stride of his step. It was as if I was seeing you again, even if only for a moment, and everything in my body, heart, and mind found peace in such a new way. Time kept its promise and gave me a gift I never knew I needed so badly.
Even though you are gone from us almost five years now, you are still here with us, living on in my boys who will someday be men… just like you. I will hug them hard and pay attention to the time with them… I will listen to the unknowing wisdom in their words through their deepening voices and feel my heart beat more deeply because of them... and in that space I will remember you. When I am missing you so fiercely that I am not sure how to breath, laugh, or live again, I will feel you all around us and know that this is it, right here, right now… even when time keeps moving on.
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