November, 2011 Four Years Ago

Four years ago, I lost my 21 year old son, Maxx Wendell, to a rare, aggressive T-Cell Lymphoma. This cancer was the horrible, preventable result of having been prescribed medication to keep his ulcerative colitis, a condition with which he was diagnosed at the age of 12, in remission. Medication about which there was no public disclosure regarding its potentially deadly consequences. That is another story.

Losing a child is insanely catastrophic. Literally. Those who live with this loss will understand immediately. A tedious introduction to the devastation of grief is unnecessary. Others can never imagine the depths to which we descend, the hollow silences into which the whispers of our lost past penetrate, the sound of our own internal howling.

In the years since Maxx died I have written thousands upon thousands of words in efforts to reclaim what I can only think of as my own brain. My sanity. My footing. And still, I am not able to say that any of my efforts have made a difference--whether or not my position in space and time is really more about finding my way back to kneeling than being flattened into the earth.

I am still here. I am still writing. Seems I cannot stop. Don't know why I would. Can't watch him grow, Won't be at a law school graduation. Won't be at his wedding or the birth of any children he might have had. There are no more gifts to buy, no more dinners out, no more wildly funny or thoughtfully considered conversations to have. No more Maxx. Not in this life with his family where he belongs. With his beautiful older sister. With his dad. With me, here, the mother to whom he gave birth. Here, where he should be until I die first.

So... I will write. Maybe someone will read.