2 1/2 Years….Missing our Joe

Two and a half years ago I spoke to my Joe for the last time. I was lying in bed on a Sunday morning and he called me along with Rich and his wife, Michelle. They were just getting ready to leave off Rich at the airport and start heading home to Kansas City. They were anxious to pick up their dogs. Joe told me he would call me later that afternoon during his drive, or if he got tired. I got up and went to church and then crossed the street to get groceries when my phone rang. It was Michelle’s mom, telling me that they had hit bad weather and had been in a car accident and that Joe hadn’t made it. It took me over a year to go into that grocery store again. My whole world got sucked into an awful vortex at that moment. I had to call Rich at the airport to tell him our first born son was gone and he had to stay in Colorado and make it to Michelle, who was in a small, rural hospital alone. I had to call his best friend. I had to call Lily and ask her to come home and then tell her. I had to tell my parents. I had to tell his brother. I was a wreck. There were people who came to the house and sat with Lily and me all afternoon. They cried with me and told stories about Joe. Some wonderful people in my life have really stepped up in the last 2 1/2 years….knowing that when I always say I am “fine” that I might not be. I have met a bunch of new friends who are moms who have lost their kids as well. They are the easiest people for me to talk to. They know the absolute pain and horror of the whole thing….and I don’t have to try and spare their feelings. They KNOW. I have this lovely older woman who lives next door who lost her only daughter almost 3 years ago. We have a quiet way about honoring our kids together. She came over on Mother’s Day evening to sit on my front porch together. Nothing really needed to be said.

I have said it many times, but a part of me died with my Joe. I was such a smiling, happy person and now I feel it when I smile. Something that was so natural before has to be worked on. That smile rarely reaches my eyes. I have mastered the “I’m fine” mask that I wear in public. It only slips when I have to wear it too long, and it gets too heavy. Then it slips at the most inopportune times. I lost a lot of my sparkle when Joe died. However, I know that a part of him lives on in me. I can feel him in my heart when I am traveling somewhere I know he would think is cool. I feel him by my side when I am on a fire call or a medical call. I yearn to tell him that I am honoring him by doing this firefighter/EMT gig in rural Montana. I would love to compare stories on his busy city FF/EMT job and my rural volunteer one. I guess that conversation will have to wait until we are reunited again. Until then, I write him letters every day or so to tell him what is going on…like a one-sided phone call. Today, Rich and I went to the River’s Edge city park and sat on the bench placed there to honor Joe at the fishing pond. We watched the fish jump and the dragon flies fly lazily by. The tree behind his bench has turned a bright red already, letting us know that fall is not far off. The Chiefs won last night and Joe would have been pretty stoked about that. He is so very missed….no matter how much time goes by. He is my son and is loved unconditionally forever. Since I am still here, that love has to have somewhere to go and it often is in the form of grief. So be patient with those moms out there who have lost a child…it is not easy and is the worst pain I have ever felt….1000 fold. My life has changed so much in the last 2 1/2 years. My friends have almost all changed. I can count on one hand those that have stuck by me and reached out regularly. I have learned to let go of the others….including family as well. That has been very hard. I talk to Joe about it often, actually. Here is to a wonderful man taken way too soon. I love and miss you, son.