I know time passes. As parents, we see it every day. When they’re little, we say that we can’t wait for them to sleep through the night. Then we can’t wait until they are potty trained. Until they are past puberty. Past the talking back phases.
Once they’re grown, we miss the old days.
We never think that there will someday be a time when we will miss them altogether. Not because we simply don’t see them, although that happens too, but because they’re gone. They have been taken from us, whether by illness or addiction or by an accident caused by the actions of another.
It is now a couple of days shy of 16 months since I last spoke to my baby. Since I last truly saw his face. Every second has been a new piercing stab into my heart. Every day that I wake up and he isn’t here just breaks my heart over again. I am still unsure if I am grateful or upset that I don’t remember my dreams. Do I wish he could visit me in my dreams or would it just hurt me even worse?
As time passes, it sometimes hurts to see those his age living their lives. I am seeing them grow in their careers. Graduate college. Get engaged. Make pregnancy announcements.
I love them and I am glad for them. I am glad that their parents are getting these experiences. Truly I am. But I can’t help but hurt too. Not because they don’t deserve these experiences because they all absolutely do!
But because Bryce deserved them, too. Because I deserved them. Because his dad deserved them. His stepmom deserved them. And Rory deserved them.
He’d be 21 now.
We deserved to experience him having the 2 birthdays he’s missed.
We deserved to experience him having the 2 Christmases he’s missed.
We deserved to experience him having the promotion he was training for and missed.
We deserved to experience he and Rory having the life they had planned.
We all deserved all of it.
Grief is a B!tch 