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Maybe some of the hardest times will soon be behind this family. Lisa has always said every storm comes in threes. I seriously doubt that’s true, but we’ve done Steve, lost Major Zembiec, and then the whole latest thing.

I think I’ve cried more these past days than I have in my whole entire life put together. It started out at Aaron’s grave this past Saturday and has given way to exhaustion of late. I’ve been in bed before midnight (last night before 10:00) the last couple of nights, but during the day I’ve been drained.

Weston was good for me the other day. At several points he blurted out, “I love you!” and after a couple of times, I started the whole “I love you more than all the colors in your shirt….” When I got to things he calls “gross” he totally picked up on it, so then we began one-upping each other with our “I love you more than all the Q-tips in the world,” and of course, he loved me more than all the dog-poo in the world…. It’s been since the end of last summer that I’ve kept him all day, or kept him at all. Weston and I have a bond. If I ever doubted that at all, I have no doubt now. I really think its Aaron. Weston always asks me about Aaron and he knew where the I love you more thans came from.
He’s fun and sociable. Very sociable. I was happy to see him play so well with another child his age while we were at the park. Smart too. He remembered the exact fishing spot where he and Greg had fished.

I do love boys so.

One of my friends who lost her husband told my sister that the third year was the roughest. Again, I don’t know if that’s true. There are only a few things I know anymore, but those I do, I never lose faith in.

This year has been extremely hard.

At Aaron’s grave, I asked everyone else to go take a walk. I’ve never really been alone at my son’s grave except for a few minutes. Not long enough. Not even this time when everyone took a walk. Greg said next time, maybe he’d go to Home Depot or something for a while.

Greg, Lisa, Kayla, and I started a tradition the second Memorial Day of Aaron’s death. We go together for a night in Amarillo and spend a long while at the cemetery. I never want to change this.

I lay down on the ground where I know he lays. Head to head, heart to heart. I cried my eyes out, wanted to be the tree whose roots meet him down in the earth. But soon, too soon, reality sets in, and though everyone is still walking, I’m aware that they are there, that at any moment someone could drive right up or past and wonder if I’m okay. The tears dry up, before I’m ready.

It’s been good to cry. As much as I wanted to yesterday, I could not share with those of you I’ve loved for years, and others I’ve reached out to and loved only recently. I told Mom in an e-mail that it felt strange blogging now. I turned off my phone and my computer. But that was yesterday.

I told someone who came to my door that everyone needed to find something newer than three years old to talk about. For a while, I even felt that for myself. And maybe I do. I don’t know.

It is what it is. I miss Aaron desperately, but I’m not overcome. Weakened yes, but not overcome.

We do have current things to be concerned with. And we have the history of old that we must never forget. I don’t intend to let the high or low take that from me. There is too much that doesn’t get talked about as it is.

I missed last Monday’s Bible Study. The week before I had prayed there at the table of another for God to begin to expose all of the darkness that exists within our political system. That He would bring it to light.

I, we, need strength. Let’s take our rest when we have to, but then we must get back in the fight. We must never lose hope. The loss of hope is the enemy’s best weapon against us.

Semper Fi

Back later, Gator!