Do you think..

by any small chance that the risks we take and the rewards we reap are related at all? Do you think that risk takers are the ones who fall the longest and the hardest? And do you think that the risk takers have the most to gain or the least to gain? What if you don't reap any rewards?

What if, just what if, and follow me here, and be warned too, as Lucas lay on that operating table, what what what if that surgeon had said, 'Damn it, I need help, I better get someone to page my senior partner, I am about to mess this baby's heart up royally.'? Hmmm. Wow. He didn't. Huge risk on his part or insane amounts of omnipotence? Actually, it was both. High amounts of both.

He took a major risk with my son and it didn't pay off. Four years later this haunts me. There was supposed to be no risk, this was to be an "uncomplicated surgery". What do I do with that? Accept. And maybe I have been. Accepting. Feels better to be alive lately but then the strings of guilt snap me back and I try to pull myself forward and that is where the constant push and pull comes in. Better? Sure. My mom said something this morning that made perfect sense. She said, "This is how I think of it, you never put it away, you put it in a different place, but you never forget." Right. Exactly.

The quiet crying, the moments alone where I feel the most alone, they are what they are. I would never, could never leave my boys on Earth behind in search of what I can never find till I get to Heaven. The logical side of me knows this all to well. And strength is drawn from others needing me. My boys. The little bit I'm needed at work. My family, my friends, my cat, the little things, just whatever. Maybe I get my strength from different things, I've never really sat down and tried to document it all. It's very intangible and I'm unable to grasp it with any real sense of physicality. They are emotions and in me they are boundless. You will never see me in a situation where a heart is required to feel and love and give kindness without a glistening or more, tears, in my eyes. That's part of what makes me, me. But when I think of Lucas, and what he lost, what we all lost and with his birthday looming ahead, I say to you, don't you dare live this life in vain or without emotions. Don't you dare live this life with no care or kindness towards others. And don't you ever think that what we do here doesn't matter. Because it does. In the most finite of ways, to the smallest little granule, it matters. How hard we love when we can? The eye contact we go out of our way to make with our significant other? The simple hug to your child that they might need but you have no time for?

In the past year or so I have realized that I have to live out loud, as I have said before. I have no other choice. With all that I have, I wish for things I know can never come. So I put it aside, in a different place, in a quiet private place and I know that he is with me. In Heaven, he'll be five in ten days. I will make a cupcake for him that day and I will sing him a song. And I will love what he was and what he never got to be all the days of my life till all the breath in me is gone.

Writing? Oh yes, and capital YES it has been my sacred outlet to bare my soul without a care who is reading. It really doesn't matter who is. I know certain of you read all the time, by your comments and some read but don't comment and I get emails instead. Maybe some read silently. Know this. If you've read here for any length of time, you know our story, my story. I hope that it matters to you. I hope that some good of us having lost Lucas is that you can take to heart what I say and slow down to love as hard as you can and that you like me now make time to be present. If you don't, it will all be your past and you won't be able to get it back, no matter how hard you try. And you can bet your sweet bottom, I know that all too well.

Jenn