Seasons

Though it’s been many years, I can still remember with absolute clarity the moment my young son, Richie, took his last breath. I was there, just inches away when the dark shadows clouded his crystal blue eyes and his vision changed from earthly to heavenly. I could not see what he did as the light extinguished. I just knew he had left me.

Behind.

I had tried to prepare myself for that moment, I’d had almost a year to do so. The doctor’s incomprehensible words still ring clearly in my mother’s heart and mind, “There’s nothing more we can do, take him home and enjoy the time you have left together”.

The time we have left? My son is only 7-months-old. We have years left, don’t we? We have many, many seasons to share.

No, we don’t. We have only moments measured by hospital stays, therapy sessions, and I cocoon us in our world where I almost believe I can keep him safe.

Keep us safe.

We both fight fiercely for his life — my life — our life — and his heart beats for mine in those times I can’t stand to believe he will leave. My little one. My only full-term child.

I hold him so close, devouring his baby powder scent, the feel of his wispy blonde hair on my cheek, his short, sweet baby words.

Always those crystal blue eyes watching, waiting, loving — when I could barely breathe.

Time passed quickly at times. Our time together. Sometimes it passed agonizingly slow when his pain was too obvious. I wanted to take it all away. To bear it for him. I wanted it to be me, the one who was leaving so he could stay. If only I could.

If only I could.

Those months, those short seasons we had where I tried my best to keep him alive did not prepare me for his death. I was only prepared for a miracle and for him to live.

So when his crystal blue eyes shadowed his passing from me, I died too. I could not stay behind without him. How could I?

I died to who I was, a young mom with a young beautiful son and my new life was born as a bereaved mom.

How does a bereaved mom act? How does anyone act when the love of their life dies? How do you navigate the world through clouded grief-filled eyes without the light that shone your way?

How do you breathe? Do you even want to?

How do you survive a minute, a second, a day? It seems impossible to do so when all you want to do is be with them, and there is a distance between you that can’t be breached unless in sheer desperation you too decide you will go.

To be with them.

Oh, but something pulls you onward and each day you get out of bed and try to remember in the midst of each moment’s agony they would want you to stay here — to experience the seasons planned for you by the One Who has your days already numbered.

Are you brave enough? No, not really. Not nearly brave enough.

Oh, but you are. Yes, you truly are.

Because it’s not until you get through your weakest moments that you know His strength. And that you’ve truly never been alone.

And so, the seasons change and come and go and you stay here waiting, watching, living. Somehow living.

Until your seasons have all passed and the shadows cloud your eyes and your vision changes from earthly to heavenly.

And there your beloved one is.

Watching, waiting, loving.

Living.

Jackie Deems copyright August 2020