Matt, These last couple of weeks have just been so hard. Halloween was 10 days ago and all those memories of you and Mike as little boys running around in costumes waiting for it to get dark enough for you to grab your bags and run down the path into the neighborhood. I remember having to tell you both to slow down and wait for me.. Even as an adult your love for Halloween continued and you would put your rubber mask on before you answered the door to hand out the candy. I remember the squeal of the little kids when you jumped out onto the step and yelled Boo.
It never fails, every year there are two little boys just like you and Mike both towhead blonds who come together holding their little candy bags yelling trick or treat. When I open the door to their smiling faces, I feel that gut punch and those tears forming. This year I was able to hold them at bay until they turned to walk away. I shut the door, sat on the couch and allowed that grief to flow…
Today, I attended the 2nd Annual Empty Shoe Project. I had helped my friends set up the night before trying to stay involved in the busyness of setting up the posters along side the empty shoes. As hard as I fought that lump began to form in my throat, that heaviness of grief started to wrap itself around my soul as it knew I was powerless at stopping it.
As I walked in those doors this morning, I felt that familiar weight of grief, loss and despair. Scanning the room for familiar faces I recognized the look in their eyes. Parents whose masks were crumbling as they tried so hard to put on the brave faces we wear every day. We know each others stories as we share a bond and belong to a club not one of us would ever join or even want to know existed. Yet here we were together walking among our angels holding each other up as one by one the masks crashed to the ground.
527 pairs of empty shoes sat among the beautiful smiles, the shining eyes, the handsome faces, the perfect little pouts. Short stories of their lives allowing us to see a bit of what remarkable human beings they were. Their dreams, their hopes, their love for life all swept away by the power of their disease.
Seeing you among them continues to take my breath away. I stare at your beautiful face and hear my mind screaming WHY? People ask if I’m ok and for once I feel free to speak my truth. NO, I am not and will never be ok. I know everyone in that room is not and will never be ok.
We are the broken ones. The shattered ones. The ones left behind to pick up the pieces. We are the memory keepers, the voices, the ones trying to piece together a tapestry that will always be unrepairable. A mosaic that will always be missing a beautiful piece of glass.
As the event was ending we each picked up our signs, shared hugs, and shed tears knowing that we are not alone in this unending grief. We are a community of angel parents who as long as we live will never let our beautiful children be forgotten.
Until I hold you in my arms, I hold you in my heart…………
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