After a terrific vacation that gave me an opportunity to rest, read, think and have fun, I came home with some real optimism in my heart. I had decided that though people warned me to expect that some days would still be hard, I would defy the odds. The worst was over, I told myself. In one respect, I was right; my every moment is not filled with thoughts of what Lisa has done. I don't feel that aching, overwhelming pain all of the time.
But the laws of human relations do still apply to me, much as I wish that they did not and by the middle of the week, my optimism was reigned in by the sadness of my family breaking up. I still don't understand why Lisa left and I think that I never will. Before I go to bed each night, I check on my sleeping son and I wonder how anyone could give that up. I would do anything to protect my boy, I would go to any length to keep him from hurting.
But as hard as I tried, I could not protect him from having his family break apart. We used to have a family hug, with Lisa and me on either side and JT in the middle singing, "Mama is the bread, and Mommy is the bread, and JT is the......tuna." We would make icky faces and then kiss him all over. Then we'd laugh and do it again.
A few days ago, JT asked me if he and I could still do that hug. Since then, I keep racking my brain trying to remember the last time we did that hug as a threesome. It was probably sometime in May but I can't remember. I don't know why I want to remember it but I do. Every time we hugged like that, we'd laugh and smile and I would think how lucky I was to have this family, these people I loved so much. At that moment, I wanted nothing more from life.
How could I have known that the joy of loving one another would be so fleeting? How will I ever put away these waves of sadness that almost overwhelm me? How will I ever learn to love another person without fearing this pain again? Why must it hurt so much?
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