Still 25

I am struggling to get this thought down on paper, so hard to articulate, to find the words…how do you define what will be so odd and irrational to many?

Our surviving child will turn 25 quite soon, and it fills me with dread…a nameless anxiety makes my heart catch.  An anticipation of sadness to come takes over and distracts my thoughts.   I have pondered and puzzled, left the thought alone,  pushed it aside, but as the day draws nearer it continues to plague me.

Then it became rather obvious, in our experience children die at 25.  We have met people who have had all their children die…at separate times – the thought brings on the queasies.  What if we outlive our only living son?… it could happen – we can no longer live like before, insulated in the thought that we would always have our “boys” , there is a constant re-adjustment and re-alignment to be made in our thought processes.  In a way,  time stopped for us 20 months ago and it is inconceivable that our youngest is turning 25…for after all, Justin didn’t turn 27 – so how can Ryan be 25?   They can’t be the same age?…can they?  Do you see how hard that is to reconcile in your heart?  Justin is still only 25, how is one to wrap their  brain around these new realities that continue to present themselves.

Justin still only 25, mail came for him the other day,  looked like a renewal for membership in a professional computer association…so hard, you just put it on the stack of stuff to be dealt with another day.   Some days I hate even getting the mail in, you never know what you are going to find, but mail for Justin is the hardest – it is another letter that you have write, another notification – it can rock your entire day.

He would have been 27, that is how we speak now of Justin, would have been.  I myself find it near impossible to speak of him at all.  I came across a reflection paper that he had written for a class that he had taken with Dr. Martin at Franciscan, just a short paper, must have been a sacramental theology class, or perhaps Theology of the Church.  He wrote:

“This has been a tremendous course. My knowledge and understanding of the Church is far deeper than it was before, and I know this is only the beginning.  This understanding will only grow deeper, if God so wills it, as I grow older, and I look forward to a lifetime lived in the Church.”

I had to stop reading after the first paragraph, can’t read through tears.  God did not will that Justin would grow older, he did however, live his lifetime in the Church.  I pushed the paper away, I couldn’t read anymore…but then I eventually circled back and took another swing at it…he went on to say in the next paragraph:

“He is there at our death in the Anointing, giving us the strength to die like Christ…giving us His courage.”

The strength to die.  His last moments, what were his last thoughts?……just pictures of a crushed vehicle, the coroner’s report…we can extrapolate from the known facts what his last moments were…none of it pleasant, a mother’s worst nightmare.   Now I have his paper tear stained and splotched.  I have to find out what else he wrote though..would that we  have stock in Kimberly-Clarke the makers of Kleenex…I arm myself with a fresh box and read on, he closes with that enthusiasm that was particularly Justin’s…

“In revealing the mystery of Christ’s Passion, the Church’s own mystery is revealed…..How wonderful a gift is the Church! How thankful we should be for our Church!  She is our home and shelter here on this earth that shows us the way to our true Home: eternity with God.  The way that she shows us is not just a path but a Person:  her Beloved, Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We, the children of God, are raised in the family of the Church to be like Christ, to live His life in our lives, to love as He loves.”

What a rare soul you were Justin, you must have only been 20 or 21 at the oldest when you wrote this….I miss your “whimsical Theology”, the merriment that would be in your eyes, sometimes they would be deeply shadowed, but those moments of wit and laughter were priceless.

I can see your chair at the dining room table from my desk, it is now almost always empty.  I look up a dozen times a day and see you there in my mind’s eye, makes my heart hurt.  My good wise friend, how I miss you.