One day last week, after arriving home and making my routine stop to the mailbox, the wind picked up and I temporarily lost a piece of mail to those invisible currents. The envelope rose and fell to the ground and then lifted again on fingers of a taunting breeze. Just before I reached it, the wind teased again and pulled it just out of my reach. As I ran down the street in my high heels, my neighbor called out, "Can I get that for you?" I stopped abruptly, and gratefully nodded.
That envelope, that remained just out of my reach, reminds me of my son. I don't write much about "Chip" for the simple reason that it is just too painful. And while I have a very high threshhold for pain, both physical and emotional, this wound is just too big and too open to share with the rest of the world. Maybe one day it won't be so difficult. 
I was reminded again of Chip on Sunday as I trimmed my rosebush. I thought of him when I held him as a baby, much like I do Liam now. And, like Liam, Chip was once fresh and new. Like the rose bush's tender new shoots, I watched him grow, nurtured him and cultivated him with all I had to give him and, difficult as it might have been at various times, I had to prune now and then as well.
As I looked at the gnarled shoots and the last of the dried rose hips that clung to the bush through the winter, I remembered that this bush was beautiful last year. And I know that it has potential for beauty still to come. But still, this thing of beauty bears its thorns. Despite how attracted one can be to a rose, we must guard ourselves against its thorns. But, just like on Sunday, hard as I tried not to let myself be pierced, I was anyway. As I bent and scooped the trimmings, a single tear rolled out of the corner of my eye. I didn't brush it away but, instead, left it there, convinced that by doing so, it would block another from taking its place.
I keep praying that , like my neighbor catching that envelope as I wildly chased after it, someone or something will catch my son before it is too late. Until then, my husband and I will do the best we can and, hopefully, like my tea roses, this rose bush will survive the winter.
Copyright 2008 liamsgrandma
