Tag: motorcycles

Another ones comes. Another one will pass.

I woke up this morning, as with every other morning, hating that I have to miss you.

It was 3 years ago that I last saw your face with a smile. While it still had life. As I was leaving for work early in the morning and you had just gotten home from working overnight. We texted on and off all day and then…

That was it.

Gone in an instant because of someone else’s carelessness. And now we all had had our lives turned upside down. You’ve lost out on a life you deserved and we’ve all lost out on that life with you.

I honestly am not sure how I have survived 3 years without you. How does a mother live without the child she created? I truly think it’s because I haven’t had any other choice. Your brother needed me here.

So I threw myself into making sure he survived. Threw myself into school to make you proud…and admittedly as a distraction from my mind. Not much interest in anything else, really. Little interest in socializing. Taking care of myself or my health. I could only focus on survival mode. I can only hope that I’ve made you proud.

I just miss you so much. I think every day about what you’d be like if you were still here. I’m sure you’d be just the same, of course, but just how you’d have grown with the added years of experience. We grow so much as humans between 19 and 22.

Would you have gotten that promotion they were training you for? Would you have stayed there or left? Would you still be living with me, causing me to still trip over your shoes all of the time and have to search for all of my dishes in your room or would have saved enough to moved out? I’d have let you stay as long as you needed. My goal as a parent has always been to help my kids get started on a better footing that I had when I started.

I miss your tangential stories. I miss your hugs. I miss your silly laugh. I miss the way your eyes sparkled. I miss your dimples and making you laugh when I’d poke them. I miss being silly and making you laugh so you’d call me weird. I miss your smile. I miss your voice.

I miss YOU.

I miss you

I haven’t written in a long time. Not because you haven’t been on my mind. Quite the opposite really. 

It’s been nonstop. 

So many things you’re missing. I just had my graduation and I hate that you weren’t there.

Carter said it too. There was an empty seat next to him. He said that it made him think about how you should be in that seat. 

You and your brother have been my motivation for finishing this program. I truly was shocked to find out that you were telling everyone that I was back in school. As a parent of an adult child, I guess you just don’t think about your kids being proud of you. You don’t think about them bragging to everyone about you. I didn’t know until you were gone. Maybe you were as proud of me as I was of you? 

I could have taken a semester off after losing you. No one would have blamed me. But my mind was picturing you saying “Why the fuck would you do that?” 

So instead, you have been my motivation. You and Carter both. Better myself so I can be better for the both of you. Give you better than I had. That is all I have ever wanted for you two. 

I am sorry that I couldn’t protect you. 

As a kid. 

And that night. 

It’s all I ever wanted. 

It was my job and I failed. 

But I promise that I will do everything I can to protect your baby brother. He misses you so much. 

We both do. 

I have a few weeks left until I am officially done with school. 

I promise I will keep making you proud. 

milestones lost

As time passes, I keep thinking of the parts of his life that he’s missing. The parts that were all missing.

I’m thinking of the grandbabies I won’t get to have. The shared grandparent experience I won’t get to have with his dad and step mom. Carter is almost 14 and maybe he will want kids someday when he grows up. Maybe he won’t. And I’ll still have my honorary granddaughter and any other honorary grandbabies from all of my chosen kids.

But I won’t have his. And he won’t get that experience. He wanted to get married. And he wanted to be a dad. Cute little Bryce babies with those dark, long lashes and big dimples. I’d have spoiled the fuck out of those babies too. Just like I do with my honorary granddaughter, C. I can’t help it. She’s so damn cute. And honestly, she kinda looks a little like Bryce. Her mom is his older half sister so she has enough of the features from that side of the features that are similar to the ones that he got from his dad that they actually look a little alike from when he was little.

We’re getting closer and closer to 2 years and I just don’t even want to think about it. I don’t want to think about how it’s been so long since I’ve seen him smile. Heard his silly laugh. Given him a big hug. I still have our text thread in my phone and it’s still pinned to the top where it was before. I can’t move it. I don’t want to move it. I don’t want to delete it.

I want my baby back. I want to celebrate his adult milestones with him just as I celebrated every one of his childhood ones.

grief isn’t rational

There are times that I will be driving and just letting my mind wander. Listening to music. Sometimes thinking. Sometimes trying NOT to think. 

I’ll pass riders on the roads or highways. Sometimes alone…sometimes in pairs or groups. My mind immediately goes to him. Sometimes it even sees him in one of the riders. Maybe it’s the way they’re riding and it’s similar to his style. Maybe it’s their posture in the bike and I can tell that they’re also likely fairly tall by the way the back rounds like his did when he wasn’t sitting up straight. Sometimes it’s because the bike is a similar build or colors. 

No matter the reason, my mind goes to him. Sometimes a wish. Sometimes a drop of my heart. Sometimes even a double take despite that being completely irrational. 

Grief isn’t rational anyway. 

Cathartic bullshit

The other day, I was driving around running errands. I have almost always been a bit of a lead foot. And I often drive my current far fast when able…and when it is safe, of course. Well that day with the errands, it was so nice outside. Warm but not hot. A soft breeze. I had my windows down and my sunroof open. I had my music blasting as loud as my stereo will go. And I was able to drive fast.

As I was driving, it hit me how I tend to find fast driving and loud music to be cathartic. Especially when the wind was blowing too.

Is that part of why he loved to ride so much? I know that riding gave him that sparkle in his eyes again. It made him happy. Was it because it was also cathartic for him too? I have never ridden but I can assume he felt the same as I do. His dad used to ride. I don’t know if he felt the cathartic feeling but I know that he enjoyed it.

I also love things like roller coasters. So does his dad. Did he get the love of the rush from me? Just like he did those dimples and squinty eyes? Or did he get it from his dad like he did that silly laugh and crooked smile? Or maybe he got a double dose of it just like he did his stubbornness?

Wherever it came from, he loved to ride.

It made him happy. It is hard to reconcile the fact that something he loved so much was what took him. Like how? He absolutely fucking loved it. He loved being with his friends. Feeling the speed. Feeling the wind. Listening to music while riding. Just like I do while driving my car. He was even doing that that night. He was out with friends. It was so damn cold that night. I specifically remember how cold it was. I remember how cold the road was when I fell to the ground when the police told me that he was gone.

How can something he love take him away from me like that?

How can something that he felt to be so cathartic take him away from me like that?

Would he be annoyed if I use Taylor Swift lyrics here? Who knows. I’m watching the Eras Tour movie and Marjorie stuck out to me.

“What died didn’t stay dead
What died didn’t stay dead
You’re alive, you’re alive in my head
What died didn’t stay dead
What died didn’t stay dead
You’re alive, so alive
And if I didn’t know better
I’d think you were singing to me now
If I didn’t know better
I’d think you were still around
I know better
But I still feel you all around
I know better
But you’re still around”