My Driving Force

From #OCA series. Found a few good ones at once. This one I am just going to paraphrase. It's by Tracy Flitcraft.

Around 2:15, I woke up to my husband leaning over me. "John did not make it." In a haze, I looked around at the sadness. The tears all around me. Nurses, doctors, a chaplain. I was handed my dead son, a moment etched in my brain. A moment of despair unlike anything I could have ever imagined. That was the moment that I moved through the motions and began the journey of feeling the emotions.

It has been about six months since my son died. There are days where it is challenging to rise from the comfort of my bed. There are days where I feel him pushing me to tackle the things in this life that I have always wanted but never have done. I always felt like I just kind of slid through life...(Despite blessings), I have never truly been fulfilled on a level that we all need at some point. The death of my son has forced me to seek what I desire. As a woman, as a mother, as a wife, as a human being. He is my inspiration every single day. My inspiration to wake up and start what I have always wanted. He is my inspiration to eliminate things from my life that are not healthy for me, my inspiration to see compassion and good in people, that perhaps I had not seen prior, my inspiration to say that it is okay, to cry. To grieve. To be angry. To be sad. To wish and to hope.

The sounds of the birds bring a smile to my face most days. The quiet breeze that seems to brush against my arm in a motionless room causes me to close my eyes and be grateful. My son, in the short (amount of time) that he was with me, gave me peace. He is guiding me to do what is in my heart, and to move from the anger and the fears. Every day as I move closer to my dream, he stands beside me, whispering in my ear, "It's okay. Do it." When the rain comes, he knows that I need a day to mourn him. The day he died, and for days after, it rained. For the rest of my life, a rainy day is my sign from him that I need to mourn. We all do. It is healing, it is healthy, and it is needed beyond words can explain. I sit in his room on these rainy days sometimes and think about all I have lost when he died. I didn't just lose my son; I lost a lifetime with my son. But then I realize the truth: I still have him. He is a part of me forever, and his passing has started my own journey of coming alive myself.

We are so much more than the outward appearance that we portray to the world. Whether it be as a professional, a parent, a sibling, a guardian. We are spiritual beings that need and must take care of ourselves before we can truly make a difference in this world. The world can be difficult, beautiful, hateful, hard and fascinating. I am not here just to merely live a typical life of working, paying bills, doing what I need to do. I am here to make a difference for my son, (Hayden Milton Smith). He is my driving force, always giving me that slight whisper that I need, when I am in doubt.

Grieving and healing are beautiful, you know, amongst the intense pain that they bring. I promise that every day you will change. You will grow. You will heal.

You will never forget though, and you will never stop longing. Never.

For myself, the greatest gift is to hear my son's name and to talk about him. Genuinely. My son may be missing from me, but he is with me every single day of my life, guiding me. Closing my eyes, I feel the tingling of the hairs on my arms.

Time to,..and start this beautiful sunny day. All in honor of my son. My (Hayden). Every day, is a new day.