Oh, How Time Flies on Motionless Wings

I don’t remember much about the days after I learned of my Robbie’s decision. There was a lot of wailing, a lot of denial, a lot of wishing that it was all a horrible dream from which I would mercifully soon awaken. At the same time all I wanted to do was sleep. At least in my dreams I stood the chance of seeing my precious boy. This side of consciousness was much too gut wrenchingly real. So I cried, I slept, I begged the universe to “not let it be true”. “No! No! No!” I thought, perhaps if I just kept yelling, “No!”

Alas, it was true. No matter how much I didn’t want to accept it there was absolutely nothing I could do to change the awful reality. My mind spun with so many things. “What could I have done differently?” “Why didn’t he talk to me?” “Why, oh why? Just why?!” I had a good idea, of course. His girlfriend had broken up with him. Yes, I remember how very earth-shattering “everything” was when I was a teenager, but “geez Robbie! We could have gotten through it. Nothing is that bad!” “Why? Just… No!”

I’m not really sure how many days I laid in here and cried. My wonderful husband held space for me. He checked on me, of course, but otherwise just let me mourn for the first few days. I’m quite certain the only reason I ventured out of my pit of despair was to accommodate my bladder (the thought did creep into my mind, “a catheter would be really convenient about now” - even in the darkest moments, right?).

When I did come, stumbling and blinking, out of my den I shambled over to the refrigerator and dug out a carton of strawberries. I looked at the date on the container and then looked at the calendar on the fridge. “I just bought this!” I groused. My husband gently said, “It’s been five days baby.” I looked at the calendar again… I trashed the berries, grabbed a box of crackers and some Cabernet and went back to my hole.

For a while it was an endless stream of sleeping, crying, drinking… rinse repeat (now that I think of it my family would probably have been grateful if I had literlly included the “rinse” part- and no, it’s too soon for them to tease me about it). Suffice it to say, all of my “regular” habits were way out of whack. I sought only the solace of mindless sleep. Waking up every day was like having to face the horrible truth all over again. I wanted to stay in my dream world where it didn’t hurt so much.Where I might see him. I kept begging him to come to me. Then I’d feel selfish, like I might be somehow impeding his spiritual journey by trying to cling to him so fiercely.

Asleep or awake, though, there was one thing I could not escape. Me. My own whirling, grasping, tortured mind… and my heart. My empty broken, anguished heart. How would I ever reconcile them with this crushingly distasteful reality? My inquiring mind definitely wanted to know. So, I whirled on.

Robbie and I shared a thing. We thought in song lyrics a lot. We communicated that way. I delighted in playing old music (well, what was “old” to me) for him, and he would play new “discoveries” he had made for me. He was learning to play Dylan’s “Don’t think Twice It’s Alright” on the guitar. I was thrilled. I was constantly calling him my little “Jeff Buckley look-alike”.

I began to realize that almost immediately after I hung up with Robert (Robbie’s father) that day, I started hearing an old Mama’s and Papa’s tune in my head, “… no salt on her tail (I changed it to “his” in my head), no cage to make him stay…” It was so strange. I decided that he (Robbie) was trying to let me know there was no way all my lamenting and hand wringing was going to slow down his spiritual progress. No matter how much time I need to spend grieving, he’ll be free to fly away. That thought helped.