Waves

Someone found this on Facebook and shared it. The first few weeks after Adam's death I couldn't relate to anything anyone said or wrote. Now, I am able to agree or disagree, feel or not feel what others have experienced. This stands out today:

As for the grief, you'll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you're drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for awhile. Maybe it's some physical thing. Maybe it's a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it's a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float.

I have clung to all of those things: Adam's watch, a chapstick that was in his pocket, the Teavana mug he gave me, the memory of our deep talk in October, the picture of him stacking golf balls, his friend and now mine, Tara. I am floating part of the time, sinking other times.

Just driving from Bloomington to Galesburg Saturday and seeing the signs for Springfield, I was desperately trying to retrace and remember the day I drove from Galesburg to Springfield after school to visit Adam. Damn if I couldn't put the pieces together and how it wrecks me.

I can allow a little bit of anger at seeing happy families splashing around the swimming pool, blissfully unaware it can all be taken away. Like I used to be.

I welcome the waves. It reminds me I have not forgotten.