That is a question I frequently ask. Time has little meaning to me, nowadays, except in relation to when I lost my precious boy. Today, my daughter came home during her lunch break at school to get a paper signed by me. As I went to fill in the date, I asked her what day it is. She said, "The 17th." I asked if it was 5-17 and she had to tell me no, it's June. At that precise moment, it hit me that it was such a duh question, because were it May 17th, Brandon would still be alive. What a wave of grief that started, as I immediately felt a deep longing for it to be May 17th, again.
What I would give to have May 17th back. I try not to dwell in the what-ifs, but they are inevitable in this season. I wonder what I could have done differently to change what happened on the 18th (even though I won't even know what happened on May 18th for a couple more months). In spite of my faith, I am absolutely certain that had I done something different, said something else on the 16th or the 17th, not given in to my stubbornness and selfishness, done just about anything other than what I'd done, my son would be alive. In my longing to go back and wave some divine wand over everything, I am not consoled (today) by our last conversations, which both ended with I love you. I know how much he loved me. My love for him was unequivocal and he knew it. None of that gives me a chance to, as my sweet daughter says, hit the rewind button.
I am what I call a practical, positive, pessimist. I can get sucked into negativity, but my hopeful nature refuses to give in to the negativity completely, so I compromise and become practical, logical. I can apply that here, by reminding myself that maybe if I hadn't stuck to my guns at other times, Brandon would've died at an even younger age or maybe if he'd had a long, very hard life, not as many lives would've been touched and I definitely do not want my kids to suffer, just to save me from grief. Of course, I don't really have any idea about what might've been different, but I have never in my life wanted something so badly as to turn back the calendar to May 17th. Tomorrow, the one month mark, is what I thought would really get me. No, today really got me.
I cried and cried. Then, I decided to take a nap, before hauling myself to grief group. I haven't yet talked about the dreams I had of Brandon, starting five or six days after he left this earth, but they made me not want to dream of him because I'm afraid of the extra grief. As I napped today, I was dreaming that I walked into the house. I was doing something out of view of the front door, but I heard it open and close. In my dream I knew it was Brandon walking in behind me, but my non-dream state mind knew that I could not bear to see him. At that moment, right before I turned around, I told myself it was time to wake up now and my eyes shot open. It was almost like what I imagine being hypnotized would be like. I am amazed (and thankful) that my awake and asleep mind were communicating in such a way, that it was like being between two worlds at the same time. The two worlds I want to be in, though, are not happening. As strong as my mind is, it cannot wish the clock backward for me or let me into Heaven to visit with Brandon. And, so I wait.
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