Yellow Flowers

I picked up a pair of his pants that lay folded by my bed.

I’ve left them here, not wanting to find another place for them. Not wanting to “put them away”

I let them fall open in my hands.

I’m able to picture him the last time he wore them.

Imagine his body filling them.

I bring them to my face to inhale his scent.

Just this one act catapulted me into 3 days of intense agonizing, though totally unsurprising pain.

Like a museum, my bedroom has turned into a place to display ordinary objects that in his loss have become absolutely sacred.

A towel, a bottle of cologne, shoes, even socks. They all have a different air about them now.

I bought a lot of these items for him.

Got to see his happiness when he received them.

Of all my kids he and I were the most alike. On the same wavelength.

The only one I could shop for because I really got his style.

He trusted me.

He trusted me.

The arch of grief tends to have certain heights, certain thresholds. The way water rises in a flood.

Sometimes it’s just a light rain that results in small puddles, sometimes I spend the day wading through ankle deep grief, making my steps heavier than normal. This time, it’s a tsunami. Threatening to drown me.

Instead of allowing myself to be tossed uncontrollably into the rapids, I enter the torrent willingly.

So in these moments, the tsunami style grief, I walk.

It’s more of a stumble really.

I stumble out the door, around the block, down to the lake, beside the river, wherever my feet take me.

Invariably, somewhere along my trek Tanner shows up.

I’ve taken up the habit of believing that the items I find directly in my path are gifts from him.

I’ve found feathers, dollar bills, coins, rocks, once I even found a piece of petrified wood.

I bring them home and place them on his altar. Believing, perhaps foolishly, that a type of quasi quantum entanglement applies. That the items I leave beside his urn will be magically imbued with his essence. I don’t care if there’s no real science behind it. It’s one of those beliefs grieving parents get to have, just because.

It’s far too early to separate his ashes. I haven’t brought myself to open his urn. But there are times, like my trip to Arizona, I have been so happy for this little ritual practice of entangling sidewalk items with his altar.

I brought a feather to Arizona, to leave a piece of him there.

Anyhow, today, in the midst of the pants pain, I stumbled out for my walk, wet faced, and kind of desperate.

The pain today has been really grating on me. I just miss his body, his physical presence so much.

My other kids have been off school for four days. And when we all spend lots of time together, stories about Tanner are plenty. A blessing and a curse.

About halfway up the street, as I am calling out to him (I don’t care if people think I’m nuts, sometimes I talk to him) I come upon a bunch of yellow flowers laying in the middle of the sidewalk.

Now if you know my son Tanner, you know what a romantic he was. And that translated into him being my only child who brought me flowers regularly. Flowers for my birthday, Valentines Day, Mothers Day. And sometimes on a no reason day. I feel so blessed that I kept the flowers he got me this past Mother’s Day.

At his funeral one of his friends brought me flowers, and recounted how he’d been with Tanner more than once when he was buying flowers for me. And how he felt a little jealous of the relationship we had. His friends break my heart all the time with stories about the way Tanner loved me.

So instantly, when I found these flowers laying in the middle of the sidewalk, I decided that they were from him. I NEEDED them to be from him.

Grieving is so hard sometimes. Sometimes it just feels desperate. Like a black hole. With no end. Grievers never know what little thing will open the floodgates with uncontrollable, out of the box pain.

These seemingly meaningless little coincidences are everything. Like shelter in a nuclear winter, or water for the parched desert dweller.