“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” ~ Leo Tolstoy
Every day a battles rages on. An internal struggle that would rival any Hollywood adventure movie. Epic and heroic.
It is always between reason and emotion.
Logic presents it’s case.
I would give everything I owned, achieved or accumulated, as would Scott, to trade places with our son. To have him back where he belonged, amongst the people that loved him the most, with the ability to live any life he chose. Without a second thought, without a doubt, I would give of myself.
Maybe that is so easy to promise. A commitment of good intention with no reasonable expectation of follow through. After all, 2 months down the line… it is not as if, someone will take us aside and say, “ Hey, have I got a deal for you!”
But when I look in my husband’s eyes and they mirror mine; I know what to be true.
Furthermore, reason asks me to look to Ryan. If my son, taking his experiences thus far, were given the opportunity to regain his life as he knew it, would he be changed? Breathe in the sweet air just a little deeper? Cherish the moments and love more openly? Choose to be more than he thought he could ever be, because he was incredibly aware of the fragility of life?
So each day, I recognize that which I desire and cannot offer and what Ryan would have wanted and cannot have. And I have to make a choice. When I stand before my son, I never want him to say, “ Mom, you had this life and you squandered it on grief alone. You didn’t find purpose. You didn’t serve others. You didn’t move yourself or mankind forward.”
However, emotion is a temptress, fickle and relentless, gentle and generous. Some days, she wraps those fingers around my heart and with every beat, squeezes them so a tightness settles in my chest. My breath ragged and memories flood in. On those days, she feels more powerful than anything I have ever known before. “You have no right to be happy. How can you take joy in this life…and why would you want to?”
Other days, most days, she is kind. She soothes me with remembrances and allows me to appreciate all the love I have been given. She reminds me that I still have so much to do.
I have come to realize that there is no devil or angel that sits on either shoulder, whispering their rhetoric in my ears. No good or evil that forces me to choose a side. Just a thousand battles and a thousand decisions that determine who is victorious.
And yet some days they are together in harmony. One day, I hope there will be more of these…continuous and uplifting.
Until then I will choose to be brave.