By dinner time tomorrow, our soggy, box-full, furniture-empty, house will feel like home despite it all.
He leaves the deep freeze on the shores of the Arctic Ocean tonight and will arrive on the unusually frozen southern shores of the Atlantic tomorrow. Knowing he had not planned on bringing his arctic gear, an emergency phone call took care of that. True winter in the lower 48 awaits his arrival. He doesn’t mind though, winter is kind of his thing…
We’ve not seen him for over a year, Christmas 2012 to be exact. So much has happened in his life and ours since then, I’m not sure his two weeks will be enough time to sort it all out. And sort it out we must, for as much excitement as there is in his return, it wears the shroud of sadness that only a broken heart wears.
You see, he fell in love with a dog, who owned the girl, that stole our son’s heart…
He chose the ring for the knot that means a great deal to her and announced to the world “SHE SAID YES!” on July 20th…
She chose the dress in the color that says “I am not afraid as I face the world with the man I love”
They chose the date, Friday, February 13, 2015, to tell the world “We have no fear of your superstitions, we’ll face it together”
They spent every spare moment they had together, traveling the land they both love so much…
One of the hardest things to witness is the breaking of your child’s heart. Whether 2 or 25, the heart cares not the why or the how, only that it’s a pain unlike any other.
The life plan has changed. The love won, now lost. “She said yes!” echoes hollowly in the darkness following “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to be with anyone”
As his mother, I grieve for his tender heart and shattered dreams.
As his mother I silently thank the girl for knowing this truth now and being brave enough to say so.
As his mother, I weep for and with him, longing to make it better, but knowing I can offer nothing but a safe place for him to cry.
So, it’s time for this boy, this man, our Matthew, to come home to slide into the open arms of his Dad and me; the only place he can let it all go.
The place where the man can again be the boy who needs what only his family can give him…a safe place to grieve, a hearth to warm the bone deep chill of lost love, and the touch of those that know the truest nature of him…love. He shines with it and has since he was born.
He will find The One.
Someday.
One who will see him for who he is, and love him completely for it.
We know this.
He will too.
One Day.
Until then, we’ll do what we have always done…love him, guide him beyond his feeling foolish for having loved “too much”. With the gentlest of reminders that no love is ever foolish or ever wasted or ever “too much”. That to deny the best part of himself for fear of being hurt this way again, would be to deny the very air he breathes.
He won’t. He can’t. It’s not in him.
As his mother, this I know.
Welcome Home Matthew…where the heart is
50 Shades of Gray Hair 
You must be logged in to post a comment.