The last few months had felt more “normal” to me. I’d thought with relief that the worst of my grief was behind me. After all, I don’t miss Joshua as much or think about him as often, and I’m somehow actually excited about making plans for the future, even though those plans don’t include him. We’ve established new family routines and cleaned out some of his belongings and felt good about doing those things. Yet as I pulled up some videos of Josh the other day, I realized that in actuality, I haven’t “heale
Back then, when the nightmare was happening, when we were in the middle of it, we took it one day and one battle at a time, and then we rejoiced over each little victory, no matter how small it was. Every day we had with him was precious, a gift, a cause for celebration. And all of that remains true. But now, with some distance, I look back with weariness at the acres and acres of damage. All of the suffering, all of the blackened years of our lives, past present and future, his body battered and beaten aga
I see the video of Joshua singing a song and banging his hand on the dining table in an off-beat rhythm, and his facial expression is all contorted and misshapen because of the tumor pressing on his nerves, and his face is huge and moon-like from the high-dose steroids. Then all of a sudden he notices Milton filming the video and his face completely transforms as he flashes the biggest smile, a smile of delight and love, and I can’t see any of those deformities anymore, I just see Joshua and his heart full