grief

"There is always a little flicker there. It is a bit like the small glowing embers you see after a fire dies down. I carry that around me, a little ember, and if I need to, if I want to have Claire next to me, I blow on it, ever so gently, and it glows bright again."

 That is how it is, except there are times when the flame burns so bright, you want it to consume you, but it can't and you are left outside in the cold, still there knocking your head against the wall. The article I got the above quote from reminded me of my son's first experience with death.  It was my grandmother, his great-grandmother, who died when he was four.  He saw her in the months before that when she got sick.  I remember we were in the car, when I told him she had died.  Somehow, he already knew what death was, I didn't have to explain.  Acting well beyond his years, and a little theatrically, I thought at the time, he teared up and hid his eyes with his little fists.  Soon after that he woke up from a nightmare crying.  When I asked him what it was about he said that he dreamed I was old. I didn't ask him, but I'm sure he associated being old with dying.  I could only assure him that I was not going to be old for a very long time.  As it turned out he would never see me old.