The death of J.T. has purchased me a new perspective. The daily details of life that normally would have affected me like boulders being heaved at my head now seem as insignificant as the bite of a mosquito. I have a new ability to know that no matter what is happening now it could be worse, much worse. My purchase has not only granted me a new perspective but a new appreciation as well. An appreciation for what I do have and the beauty that surrounds us all. A unique ability to now truly appreciate the warm sunshine on my back, the wind in my hair, the breath visibly escaping my body on a frigid morning, the love of friendship and the irreplaceable compassion of a community. However beneficial, this acquisition, it is still a costly wisdom and one that I never would have asked for, because the price is infinite and unbearable.

Whenever I stop and really think about J.T. and try to truly focus on what feelings his memories invoke I continue coming to the same conclusion… the feeling I get is complete. I have had so many emotions since his loss anger, confusion, desperation but the one feeling I long to feel, complete, only happens in my mind. When I close my eyes and remember…waking him up, doctoring his hurts, kissing those little chapped lips I, if only for a moment, feel whole again.

Although it has become the one thing I can count on, grief morphs itself into someone or something different so often that I wake up with a dismal sense of anticipation. I find myself not knowing what form it will take, however I know with dreadful certainty that it will, as always, be there. Sometimes it is a slinky woman with dark hair and ominous black eyes. She appears suddenly to me and challenges me without uttering a word. She flees when I try to reason with her, and looms uncomfortably close to me with no regard to the uneasiness she causes. Other times grief transforms itself into a heavy cold steel sword. This form is much more useful to me for the fact that I can pick it up, laboring intensely under its enormous weight and I can lunge it at the unkempt weeds of confusion that pop up in my mind cutting them down in search of a path to clarity. It has the ability to be so many things; a friend, an enemy, a weapon, a shield, an excuse, a reason. Whatever form it takes, welcome or not, grief will remain with me…a constant companion.

He was outside on one of his inevetable treasure hunts with a plastic cup collecting icicles and looking for frozen pools of water, finding his bounty in my Mom's birdbath. Stripping off his gloves, so he would be able to handle and feel the ice. J.T. patiently removed it from its frozen vessel in one gigantic frozen sphere, taking so much time, persistance and patience only to lift it high above his head and send it plummeting toward the ground crashing into a thousand peices...throwing some and eating others. He came in with his little brother in tow, pink cheeks, and red hands, spilling tales of his adventure while I held his hands between mine gently rubbing the warmth back into them. I miss that, the ability to warm him, to hear him, to comfort him, because in doing these things for him he in turn; without intention, did them for me and that is irreplaceable.

As thoughts of J.T. bud and blossom in my head like tender roses in spring I find my self wanting to share these memories with others. Sometimes I want to share them with someone who experienced those moments with me but often times I want to paint them in vivid color on a fresh canvas, someone who never had the opportunity to know J.T.’s humor or intelligence.

The act of sharing these stories is somewhat medicinal to me. I know when we speak of him the grief is no longer only significant to me but it continues to affect others. I feel like the sweet fragrant memories blooming in the minds of those who loved him gives J.T. a beautiful garden of red, yellow, orange, and pink to frolic in…a mere piece of him to forever keep with us.