#SOL16: Love Sounds for My Son

Collage made from Citra Solve papers (M.A. Reilly, July 2016)

I'm pulled from bed this morning with the need to write.  I have been dreaming awake. This post that will take form here began as lines in a dream--words forming first as sound and then whole lines as I was partially awake and now they have become this print. There's a tremendous sadness I feel when I think of my son and the loss of his dad. Dev was one month past his 17th birthday when Rob died. Barely 17. And I think this morning that there will be no father's steady hand to guide him.

This morning fear pulled me from bed.

And make no mistake it is not the fear that Donald Trump spoke about last week. That fear is frankly too pretty--too full of apocalyptic con and slight of hand. The fear Trump railed about is more comic-like, less substance.

The fear that pulled me from bed was fear lodged in my throat. It was fear of what is not now. It was fear in what I imagined might be, in the many instances my son will hurt without his dad there too soothe. And yes, I know I will soothe when I am allowed when I am even knowledgeable, just as I know there already have been days when my touch, my concern, my care was not found nor invited. Some pain is private. There are days when my son's loss finds purchase and steals his breath and I must bear witness. He will fix himself if fixing is needed, but mostly he will endure and add that experience to the emotional chest he has been building since birth.

This is what I can feel. This is what I can endure. This is the taste of sorrow. This is the slash of loss. This beneath it all is love.

And here in the daylight, I wonder if he will be a stronger man as a result of this loss. Will the empathy that comes with losing love, losing a father fuel his drive, his care, his dedication to others? Will his knowledge of other shine, be a beacon of hope?  What trajectories will his life compose?

Mothers know much and nothing.

What I do believe is that love is by invitation. It cannot be forced. Love is more powerful, more constant than fear.

My love for my son is a constant note that sounds below and above the daily actions I take. It sounds even when fear lights like a fuse. Love allows me to know how temporary fear is: a bright light that blazes and then dies as it should, as it must for we are here, living.

Love sounds even when I am blinded
                  by fear and

                              I follow those notes
               
                         a handful
                                 of musical breadcrumbs
                                  tossed from the hands I have known and not,
                                  tossed from my own hands years earlier.

I follow that line of music
                         leaving behind a dense, imposing forest
             
and find myself here
              in morning light,
              the burn of fear left behind--the shroud of a dream alongside it.

Here in a clearing called morning
love has called me from sleep, from fear
and I have answered
with a handful of words.




Afternote:
I wrote this I realized while sitting in Rob's chair and the feel of the music in the writing sounds a lot like Rob's voice.