Kevin and Terry
Everything is sort of a jumble at this point. I'm not even sure of what I want to write but I did know that I wanted to show up at the library and do a blog. To write something as I have done on a pretty regular basis for over a year now. Little did I know, then, that I would be including a little bit about another one of my children who died a little over two years after Kevin.
Things are kind of muddled in my thinking right now and, obviously, I have thought a little more about Terry these past few weeks, since his death is so recent. I still think of Kevin ,too, on a daily basis. I wonder how there can be room for any more thoughts, thoughts of the loss of another son, but there is. Perhaps it's a little like having one child and wondering whether you have enough love for a second and a third, and of course you do. It seemed that my thoughts of Kevin were all consuming and yet now my thoughts are split between the two.
A couple of things stick in my mind. The Lord of the Rings came to mind once again. Terry loved the Lord of the Rings as much as Kevin did. In the movie, Elrond is telling Aragorn that his daughter, Arwyn, is dying and that Aragorn has to let her go so that she can return to the Grey Havens with her people to live an immortal life. The time of the elves is over. I can't remember the exact words but Aragorn didn't want to accept the fact that their love would be "nothing more than a memory". In this case, Arwyn chose a mortal life in order to be with Aragorn. Love is eternal, they say, as is my love for Terry and Kevin, and yet there is no choice for me at this time. My love for them is a memory and, yet, memory will keep that love alive. But memory is all I have and faith that I will see them again, although not with these mortal eyes.
The second thing that keeps sticking in my mind is living life to the fullest and what does that really mean. I don't mean quality of life. I've talked about that before, so, not that. So what does it mean to live life to the fullest? Go to as many movies as you can, eat, drink and be merry, etc.? The irony is that I never felt that I lived a "full" life until recently. Now I do, for some strange reason. Is the loss of a loved one living life to the fullest? Maybe it comes closer to it than anything else does. The full realization of love by the loss of it? The full realization of life by death? What could be more living life to the fullest than experiencing the loss of it? Death. (I was just told recently that in another religious culture they celebrate the day the person died, not his or her birth day.)
Another of the many ponderous questions which seem to plague my thinking as I try, very unsuccessfully, to understand why the universe acts as it does and why Kevin and Terry are gone from our lives. I have a sense of peacefullness when I think about Terry and his spirit, free from illness and turmoil. But I don't have that same feeling when it comes to Kevin. There is still only a little closure there; we found his remains. It's not the closure as in Terry's case since there is closure. We don't have that closure in Kevin's case since we don't know what happened... that nagging question. Those nagging doubts.
Things are kind of muddled in my thinking right now and, obviously, I have thought a little more about Terry these past few weeks, since his death is so recent. I still think of Kevin ,too, on a daily basis. I wonder how there can be room for any more thoughts, thoughts of the loss of another son, but there is. Perhaps it's a little like having one child and wondering whether you have enough love for a second and a third, and of course you do. It seemed that my thoughts of Kevin were all consuming and yet now my thoughts are split between the two.
A couple of things stick in my mind. The Lord of the Rings came to mind once again. Terry loved the Lord of the Rings as much as Kevin did. In the movie, Elrond is telling Aragorn that his daughter, Arwyn, is dying and that Aragorn has to let her go so that she can return to the Grey Havens with her people to live an immortal life. The time of the elves is over. I can't remember the exact words but Aragorn didn't want to accept the fact that their love would be "nothing more than a memory". In this case, Arwyn chose a mortal life in order to be with Aragorn. Love is eternal, they say, as is my love for Terry and Kevin, and yet there is no choice for me at this time. My love for them is a memory and, yet, memory will keep that love alive. But memory is all I have and faith that I will see them again, although not with these mortal eyes.
The second thing that keeps sticking in my mind is living life to the fullest and what does that really mean. I don't mean quality of life. I've talked about that before, so, not that. So what does it mean to live life to the fullest? Go to as many movies as you can, eat, drink and be merry, etc.? The irony is that I never felt that I lived a "full" life until recently. Now I do, for some strange reason. Is the loss of a loved one living life to the fullest? Maybe it comes closer to it than anything else does. The full realization of love by the loss of it? The full realization of life by death? What could be more living life to the fullest than experiencing the loss of it? Death. (I was just told recently that in another religious culture they celebrate the day the person died, not his or her birth day.)
Another of the many ponderous questions which seem to plague my thinking as I try, very unsuccessfully, to understand why the universe acts as it does and why Kevin and Terry are gone from our lives. I have a sense of peacefullness when I think about Terry and his spirit, free from illness and turmoil. But I don't have that same feeling when it comes to Kevin. There is still only a little closure there; we found his remains. It's not the closure as in Terry's case since there is closure. We don't have that closure in Kevin's case since we don't know what happened... that nagging question. Those nagging doubts.
posted by Patricia | 8:20 AM
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