fight or flight

The Little One ... I've been expecting his death since before he was conceived. Since his sister failed to thrive and was vacuumed out of  my body at 16 weeks. Since he was hospitalized at 3 weeks old and wasted away until a doctor realized what surgery he needed.

He took his parents' divorce harder than any of the rest is us. Begged me to go back - to love his Dad again. His big brother tried to tell him this was better for everyone. That the little one didn't remember how unhappy we'd all been.

Not remembering and remembering too much - they are opposite sides of the same pain for my hungry ghost sons. Remembering wrongly how good or bad life was and comparing 'now' to an imagined then that may not ever have been.

Driving to get him again today - another  unscheduled and yet somewhere inside of me expected rescue mission - I let the feelings roll through and over me. Fatigue. Resignation. Dread. Relief.

Mostly fatigue. I don't want this fight anymore. I wish for some other champion to help slay his dragons.

a quiet haunting

It's been almost a year since I wrote here. Life has been - my sons have done what they do. They have come, and gone, and come again, and gone again. At this point in time they are both away for the summer working out of this dead-for-them town with little to offer young men besides addiction and depression. They will be back. Life keeps going on.

And in some quiet still moments, our shared pasts haunt me. The questions. The blank spaces. The 'neverminds' of The Oldest. The 'don't worry about it' of The Little One.

I was reminded tonight that there is still much to share - much for me to write. And so, I'll get on with that. Not here, most likely. But in some other form. Not just for our own healing, but for those who find their own way forward through our words.