Rave on

From the complications of loving you

I think there is no end or return.

No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?

This isn’t a play ground, this is

earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence

to all my sudden, sullen, dark moods

that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.

And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.

And I say to my heart: rave on.

– Mary Oliver, Thirst

That was the only way to love Kreed. Fully. With no end or return. And it was our heaven while he was here. We gave our everything for his life, so that he could experience a life, a good life, not just any ole life but one he felt with all his heart. We said to his heart to rave on despite having autism and less communication and a difficult medical journey and he took that and ran with it and loved his life and asked to experience everything. 

As a result we sit here in this grief, missing our boy and the emptiness left behind. How do you keep going on when everything you knew, and everything you gave and everything you had is just gone. In an instant. And no one can understand why we say live for a moment, live for today because you don’t know what the next moment will bring- because it’s so inconceivable that a life can be lost. Until you’re the one holding onto a human life as their heart beats their last beat. And you know in that instant that all you have is moments. 

I will never regret the moments we had with Kreed and all that we gave to him to have the life he had. It wasn’t easy ever, but it was worth it. And the love was worth it even though now we lay in such ruin because we loved and lost. You will never ever regret loving someone too much and giving all of yourself. At the end of this life you’ll never say, “well damn, I just loved people and this life too much.” 

The consequence of great love is great grief. I have come to accept this, although all of my being rails against it. Accepting loss and that we will live the remainder of our days without him is unacceptable at its core. But the reality is that acceptance. 

And so we miss him. With every fiber of our being. Sometimes I walk past his photo and want to break down and cry because the ache becomes all too much in that moment. And that is our reality that I have come to accept. 

This is our grief life now. And this is our hearts continuing to try and rave on in true Kreed style.

Loving the World

I have not written a lot in the last year. Sometimes words are painful. Or rather putting down what I think and feel onto paper made it too real. But I realized this is necessary. Otherwise they stay inside my mind and eventually I suffocate from the weight of them all. But when I write them down, it frees them and my weight is lifted. So today starts anew and hoping I can continue to put my thoughts down. And as always, along with Mary Oliver who has given words to Kreed’s life and our grief. 

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—

          equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

          keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

          astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium.

The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

          and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

          to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

          that we live forever.

-The Messenger, Mary Oliver

This was Kreed. His work was loving the world. As a young boy he yearned to explore and be free in this world and as he learned how to be in this world, he loved it more and more with each new experience. Kreed didn’t want much- at home he wanted as little clothes as was acceptable, his favorite foods and love. In the community he just wanted to shop for good smelling stuff, freedom to hop through stores, find books or movies, sample as many everything free French fries as possible and experience as many things as possible. He just wanted to be. He just wanted to experience everything. And to love. Love us. Love his life. Love his adventure. Love nature. Loving just being in this world. 

Which is what makes his death so damn hard. He LOVED, truly loved. And if you were around him you couldn’t help but love too. His death has left a gaping hole. The first year it was a deep dark pit that we all fell in. This year we are at least standing in it and looking over the sides and learning how to love on our own. Learning from him still. But it’s hard. And still feels so empty without him. 

I miss seeing the way he saw the world. I miss the dimpled smiles for the simple things in life that no one else would notice. And the world keeps piling things up in this world as we deal with so many stressors. Even if we had these stressors before, when he was here, we were surrounded by his light and joy and that made all the difference. 

So now...now we are learning the work of loving this world. I don’t know that we will ever be as successful as Kreed was in this, but for him, we will always try. 

Always.