Autumn

Driving home today

I saw her auburn hair 

In the Autumn trees

Pressed against the blue sky

The colors emerged

And burned into my soul

7 Months

Wasn't expecting this...

Tears tore me apart...

Memories small and big...

Flooded my head all day...

Glimpses of her smile...

Flashes of her wit...

Visions of her beauty...

I saw her in my mind...

I stared at her in photos...

I pleaded for her to be...

With me...

Why?

I'm feeling lost...I just read Luke's Journal...

Student of the Week

Today Luke came home so excited.


He had big news...

He had been picked as Student of the Week.


There were pictures to gather and forms to fill out.


He couldn't wait...

He didn't hesitate.


But I did.


I saw question one on his Star Student Sheet...

My family?


One more moment of happiness turned bittersweet.


I choked on my own breath as I watched his little hand write...

Dad...Ben...Me.


And then nothing else.


It seemed effortless...

As if he had done it without thought.


But was that true?


Or was he thinking...

And did he pause for a moment while writing?


I believe he did.


The instant after he wrote that capital M...

His pencil tip seemed to hover a fraction longer...


He seemed to contemplate.


And I wondered...

If he was going to write Mom or Me...


Was he uncertain too?

Here

More than ever...

I feel like a man in transition...

A project in the making...


I was done reinventing myself...

Reinventing my life...


I had finally discovered myself...

Found myself with her...


I was the man I dreamed of being...

With the woman I dreamed of being with...


Now I'm here...

Alone...

Struggling to find myself again...

Truth

There are moments...

Where I feel like I don't exist anymore...

Frozen

Had another one of those moments last night...

As I tumbled and rolled in out of sleep...

She didn't come to me in a dream...

But in my mind she was still here...

In those seconds between conscious and unconscious thought...

Nothing had changed...

For a mere instant I felt complete...comforted...warm...

But time moves quickly...

Reality surfaces...

And warmth is short lived as certainty settles in...

And I'm left staring at the clock...

Frozen...

As I face my existence...

Melancholy

Abrupt outbreaks of malaise...

Startling moments of despondence...


Anguish that swells up inside me....

Sweeps over me...

And ripples throughout my day...


Sudden flurries of tribulation...

Unforeseen periods of weakness...

Damn Stick People

So even stickers can turn a good day...

Into a bad night.

As we left soccer practice...

Ben spotted a mini van...

It's back window was covered with one of those adorable stick people families...

He looked up at me and said,


     Are we ever going to be able to get stickers like that?  


    We don't have a dog or a Mom anymore.  


    I guess we probably can't get those.

What could I say?

I tried to say...

We are a family...

We have a Mom...

She's in our hearts...

But he wants the family everybody else still has...

A Mom and a Dad...

A couple of kids...

And a happy ending...

Next to Her

She had no idea what it was like to be next to her...


To be in her embrace...

To be gazed upon by her eyes...

To be enveloped by her grace...


But I did...