New One to Love

Whether you know it or not, your new little scatter pants, the one that runs all over in a flash, with boundless energy, the one that has brought some happiness to your life....new adventure and jazzed up the one that's been there forever, pumping up his blood, making him stand guard for countless hours just waiting for a glimpse of the new little one, that was a step. I think it was an involuntary reaction, it was an invisible gesture, a reaching out for newness...and just like that you took a step.

Liberty is so proud of you. She is wagging her tail big time right now. Probably scampering around with both of them; you just can't see her. She's there.

This morning, I was putting the littlest down for his morning nap. He was more than 3/4 of the way asleep and suddenly he opened his eyes. He didnt' look at me. He just opened them. Then he looked up and held his hand outward with a huge smile on his face. My heart stopped. Not only did he do that, he waved upward, like someone was there but up higher than someone standing. He said some variation of some word, I'm not sure I think I willed it to be something like this (and it did sound like this but we all know the mind can play tricks on us), "kookis". Unlike the word "cookie" when he says that, this was a different blend of a vowel sound. And he just kept waving. And I cried soft tears. I felt Lucas there so strongly. And the kicker is, previously, when he was falling asleep as I rocked him I was remembering Lucas. I had been thinking of the day I gave birth, and how vivid those memories were, of his Pediatrician walking in the room with a big smile on his face, meeting Lucas, checking him out, then later, the next day seeing him come into the room with not such a smile on his face. And in five minutes feeling like I couldn't breathe, hearing terminology I'd never heard, all of it sounding like Greek to me. My mind this morning was quietly racing with thoughts of all of that, looking down at the littlest, feeling so lucky and blessed again, and then he pulled up and did all that smiling and waving.

Do you not think that there is such meaning in life? Even when you aren't even thinking there is? Even when something mundane and very day to day is happening, very boring, very "hey I've got this, done it a thousand times" is going on, do you not think that if you were to slow down, look at the scenery around you, that there isn't meaning to almost everything? There is. Let me tell you, please take it from me. There is. To my core, I know it.

There is a lot being done and said about 9/11 coming up. Many families and women and children moving on, trying to move on, lots of stuff on TV. I have been watching it all with great interest. Not so much because it ties in to anything with Lucas and having lost him, more so because it matters. More so because it's intense human interest and to see what these folks have lost and had to overcome is amazing. Every now and then a chord is struck inside me and yes, I do cry because it reminds me of having lost him but largely not. I have a view from a different street, in a much different house, on a much different sofa than most people. And because I sit here, where I am, I feel wiser. Yet dumber. Because for all I'm worth, I cannot overcome things I want to be able to overcome. The emotions are still with me and truly as strong as ever. He stays with me. For that I'm glad but it can be a double edged sword you know?

Having a new one to love, it helps and the love that I have for this little boy (and his big brother) can move Heaven and Earth. And maybe that's why Lucas is here so much, he's moved by my ever staying love and he knows he's automatically, intrinsically part of my soul. So let it be written, so let it be said.

-me