"Let your past make you better, Not bitter"~ Unknown
Today would have been my 1st born son Donovan Perri's 40th BD had he lived. He died @ 2 1/2mos from what we now know as SIDS.
Tomorrow would have been my third born son Joshua Marion-Roi's 35th BD had he lived. He drowned tragically in my landlord pool.
There is this thing called anniversary grief that those who have lost a love one can well attest to. Time does not heal wounds. What it can give you is time...
You change and you see things perhaps from a different perspective as you move through the tide of time. Everything must change... nothing stays the same including how or which way you grieve.
When I was a young mother at the time of both their deaths age 21 at the time of Donovan's death and 31 at the time of Joshua's I wasn't sure if I could ever breathe properly. In fact at age 21 that year was a fog once I was told about Donovan. I was alone. Even at his funeral it was only me, my 2 daughters, the baby sitter at his services. I went through motions and it took a year before I could breathe properly.
Donovan was what people would have called a "good" baby quiet & easy to care for. He was a beautiful baby and was very close in personality to his older sister Andrea.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0XJCJ1Srw
Then Joshua came into my heart.
I went into labor on would have been Donovan's 4th BD. I prayed that I would not give birth on that day naively, feverishly thinking somehow that would have meant I could keep him.
Well it didn't although I "kept" him in essence for 7 years. Joshua was indeed born on a Sunday Morn which in essence why this song by Angela Bofill entitled "Rainbow Child, (Little Pas) that she wrote ironically in 1979 2 years before Joshua's death when she experience the tragic death of her nephew.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LdQHCdH5VY
Almost a decade later, I choreographed a dance based on this song & danced beautifully by my daughter Trishaa in homage to her brothers.
Somehow I made a pact with myself that their lives would not be in vain. It wasn't a conscious pact not much different then my praying that Joshua would not be born on Donovan's BD, but the pact was there. Through the subsequent years I held up that pact; other years failed miserably. But I kept on getting up.
So here I am 40 years later still vertical, still caring still falling and yet even moreso getting up. In a small sense of irony, the day before the anniversary of Joshua's drowning I have a exhibition opening reception on Nov 11th. Joshua's ashes were flown out to sea on Nov 22nd which with even more irony would have been my wedding anniversary if the marriage lasted. My former husband and I separated for the last time a few months after he died.
There was no resurrection, that ship had sailed.
But I was still here!
I'm still here.
It also was for those who would remember the date of the assassination of John F. Kennedy so it would be near impossible for me to "forget" as if I would really want that to be.
Since I had more time with Joshua I can tell you how apropos this song was. He more then Donovan was remarkably like me in personality. Joshua was like cayenne pepper, adventuresome, bold, curious, imaginative a heart as big as all outdoors.
He was bold, funny highly intelligent for someone so young. And I do not say that through the scrim of time and grief. He was a special kid well like & popular even when he would drive you crazy with his high energy living. And lived he did.
Loved Star Wars, water was strong like the fictional character from the Flintstones Bamm Bamm.
So ones would know this does not take away from my living children as tey have all grown into beautiful, responsible, capable caring human beings who in their own individual ways are making their mark on the world. I simply wished that my sons also had the same opportunities.
This morning I got up not necessarily feeling down more of a there were a couple of matters that needed to be said to some people that I had not said a few months ago as I wisely thought to give it time and would come back to revisit.
I revisited...
It wasn't a telling you off kind of visitation, more of this is where things are at & I get why it happened but now I simply want an adjustment & we will be "adjusted".
I had adjusted so this was really the epilogue.
Life can work itself out if we allow it and get out of the way of ourselves given time. So I put on my red lipstick and got out of the way.
So today I pay homage to my sons & continue to function well as one can be with whatever life and living issues. I can be bold, fearless, adventuresome, funny and have a big heart as large as all outdoors. AND I can also be quiet, easy going and good as circumstances can allow. I continue to revisit my ownself, making adjustments corrections caring for things not cared for, hoping that ones will bear with me as this is indeed a work in progress.
Know full well again that everything must change.
And we can.
We do...
We must, whether we want it to or not...
Life will continue to work.
Jonathon Green, artist
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could"...~- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKIIYk8tdgE
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