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.