A New Year. A sigh of relief, and more rose buds.

The days leading up to Christmas are sometimes more difficult that the day itself, and collectively we have found the week between Christmas and New Year’s day just brutal.  I can’t explain it, but the phenomenon seems to hold true for those dearest to my heart.  We were grateful for the family that cast such a safety net of love about us…not tight nor restricting, just gentle silken cords of love, patience, laughter and I am most grateful for a family that can cry and laugh in the same second…for a family that if you cry, doesn’t pounce on you with probing questions of “what’s the matter”….they know.

We had a lovely New Year’s Eve, redolent with good food and  the presence of dearly loved faces from New Jersey.  My cousin and his family drove all the way down for a late lunch, the same cousin who appeared on my doorstep the night Justin died, who drove back to Jersey that same night and drove back for the viewing loaded with the only thing I could be coaxed to eat….Jersey Food….apple cream cake, bagels (real ones), Jersey hard rolls, homemade meatballs, lasagna…it did a body good and my heart and soul even better.

But New Year’s day was hard, there are some days where someone’s absence is so palpable, the longing so intense…those are the nights when you cry yourself to sleep, when flashbacks of the day he died and how he died won’t stop playing.  We woke the next day exhausted…Doug had a rare day off and we were going to accomplish so many things….not so much.  Those are the days where you start to think that maybe this is as good as it will ever get…”exhausted functioning”, that you will never have the energy for a project, or that you grow frustrated because you hit the wall so quickly.

We went to Mass Monday night and we were looking forward to having a Holy Hour after Mass in the Chapel.  Our pastor made the hour so special, a beautifully refurbished monstrance, incense that filled the chapel and lingered, the time passed by so swiftly and despite the number of people, there was a peaceful silence in the chapel.  I could feel peace start to seep into my heart and a glimmer of hope for the new year.  The heavy burden and sadness of the past month started to slip away, perhaps we would one day feel more energy, perhaps one day our hearts might be a bit lighter.  The average time of intense grief for a child is 3 to 5 years from what I have read, it never really goes away, but that searing, burning pain in your chest retreats.  You gain a little confidence when you come through a really dark period of intense grief, you start to know that if you can just maintain, you come out the other side… you gain a few more coping skills, you learn what works for you, what doesn’t work…and hope grows.

I wandered out to the rose hedge to harass the roses, part of me afraid that I wouldn’t find any to talk too…I did pass a pansy that was blooming, but pansies are far too self-satisfied to entertain questions of the heart…but the roses, they just seem

to draw you in their arching canes…the Zephirine’s are nearly thornless, so it is not a hostile embrace, more a gentle tangled hug.  And there out in the winter sun  were rose buds, waving at me in the wind…at first I thought only two or three, but the closer I looked, the more still I stood…the more buds I saw.  Still not a defiant budding, but almost carefree, you can almost hear their laughter, their joy at growing and blooming…those little buds expect to bloom, and I felt a certain obligation to not remind them that it was January.  I feel like the Grinch puzzling and puzzling till my puzzler is sore…and I can hear Justin saying “c’mom Mom…you can get this”, his eyes dancing and that smile, they have become almost a gift from him, a reminder that there are always rosebuds in eternity…always.