Memories fade, far too quickly. I was twelve when my mom died, and I barely remember her. She deserves better than that, but what can I do? She was one of those who always ducked the camera. She gained weight when she got pregnant with her first child, and probably never thought how much the lack of pictures would hurt. How could she? She was only thirty-two.
It kills me to think of that happening to Hope, that’s why I’m desperately seeking pictures, e-mails, anything I can hold on to. Damn it, he wasn’t here long enough!
That last blog is the only long exchange I can find, though we e-mailed like that nearly every day. I can’t find any of the good ones, the ones when he was doing well, the ones that were long exchanges of love and happiness. And I don’t have any from when he was gone, when they changed his meds and he really started to be the man he was meant to be. He didn’t have internet access. We talked on the phone, but those conversations are gone forever.
We moved several times over the years, and somewhere I lost the photo album that had all the pictures from before Hope was born. I have ONE picture of my wedding. And it’s in bad shape, as he gave me a lovely little tabletop fountain with a picture frame, and I put it in there. You guessed it, it got wet. It’s stuck to the glass. I took it to Target yesterday, and managed to have two 5×7’s made. But they are blurry, with water marks on them.
He looks so happy in that photo! I know I made him happy, that is becoming a greater comfort to me. He was not here long, and his early life was a living hell. But for the few years I had him, he was happier than he’d ever been.
I’ll forever regret the life we could have had, if someone somewhere had cared a little more. It IS better to have loved and lost, but damn it! Why did I have to lose him?
My heart is gone. And I have to go on, with this gaping hole in me, and a cold and bitter wind blowing through.