Timing

Day 1709.

This is some bad bloody timing!
This is not the time to feel overwhelmed and unable to organize my work. This is no time to slow down. Our foundation work is on fire!

Bad timing?
Really Sheila?

Despite the fact that I point to the question of timing countless times with other grieving mothers, it took another to remind me that…
June is upon us.
Luke’s Birthday!

The fog and the restlessness came in May, rendering me unable to process information, find emails, operate familiar software… never mind the dreaded passwords.

The endless sobbing followed, my chest tight, my breath shallow.

The image of the Akita dog, Hachiko, who waited faithfully for 10 years at the railway station for his deceased master to return, filled my soul and I realized that was me, waiting for Luke.
The story of this iconic dog is so devastatingly sad, some may say it’s a waste of a life, but the story is so beloved because it is also an extraordinary homage to loyalty and love.
The bronze sculpture of him at Shibuya station in Tokyo on the spot where he waited, is testament to that.
Tears fall, as I write.

At this time 28 years ago I was waiting for Luke.
Expectant, with swollen belly and full of love.
My body has not forgotten, nor has my heart.

My therapist explains that the heart generates an electromagnetic field in the body 5,000 times greater than the brain.
It’s no wonder that my brain can not function when my heart is yearning so hard.
Who knew there was science to support what I call ‘grief brain’?

Content with this knowledge, I surrender to my need to sit vigil for Luke…
taking to my bed,
to rose scented baths,
to reading our text chain,
to smiling at his words,
to weeping,
to honoring my broken heart, myself and my boy.

Though the trauma of Luke’s death has waned, the sadness has not.

After 24 hrs of fully embodying my grief, I emerge leveled.
I find those emails, someone else is doing the artwork. And the passwords?…. fuck ‘em!
But tonight, I screw up Luke’s birthday meringues and pause this to remake them.
Note that ‘leveled’ is more of an acceptance that I am shit, for now.
It is what it is.
And this will pass.

I am not sure when I will learn that around Luke’s birthday and death day, I am going to need help to keep the work of our (Luke’s and my) foundation going.
Maybe it will always surprise me that these times bring me to my knees.
Maybe someone else will always need to remind me

I am always, on some level, sitting vigil.
I am always Hachiko.
I always will be.

But at these times, especially so.

Hachiko waiting for his master at Shibuya Station in Tokyo, because he should have the last word!