Allison, I Love You

Allison, I have learned a lot about love in my life, and today is Valentine's Day, a day that we would send the cupcakes (back in the day when you and Jen could take them to school, homemade ones, that is), decorate the boxes, write out the cards, all the things that little ones do. As you grew up, things changed, but we always made sure you got special surprises on this day, just as I still do with your sister. Her bag was filled with pink and purple wrapping and several goodies inside! Our new traditions include special touches of pink, and special trinkets that only we know what they mean, they are that tangible, significant present that brings you closer to us, as if you could be any closer at all. This is the day of love and all it represents. You had boyfriends along the way that gave you little gifts, too, but your dad and I always made sure you knew we loved you most, more than anyone else ever could! That will always hold true for both of our daughters, no one on the planet could love you more.

I am learning more about love than I ever thought possible. I know the scriptures from the Bible about love, I know great love stories, I see specials on television about married couples who stay together for years and years sharing their "secrets" as to how they have kept a marriage together, and I see and hear the stories of motherly and fatherly love for their children. All you have to do is talk to someone or watch the news to fully realize that love is in the air, and it is so deep, and often personal that no words can describe it. Sometimes when I think about my own relationship and marriage to your father I am in awe that we have been married for 32 years, well over half of our lives! And your grandparents, well, they will celebrate 60 years this summer, still together and holding hands. The grandparents you have been reunited with were married 40 years and I can tell you, your grandfather was never the same after your grandmother left this earth eight years before him. In some of his last conversations that March of 2002 he spoke of his love for her, often times at the end, confusing me for her, but nevertheless, he spoke of their walks on the beach, her beauty, and the one thing that he never stopped praising and loving her for, the delivery of three children. His children were his world and he never ceased to tell us of his love.

I think there is no love like a parent's love for their child, and today, I must say, as the valentines are exchanged, and as I struggled not to buy yours and create your "care package" to send, I miss you like any other day. This is not different. But my heart is weeping. It's as if a bucket of tears could be filled. I went to lay a pink rose by your gravesite the other day and my heart filled with the most amazing sense of love. You know, I barely go there. I cannot bear to see your name etched on the bench, still. Every time I go, I trace the letters and I stand in disbelief that your physical body is there. I know you are not, yet, there are times that I don't even plan it, but my car takes me to get that rose and visit the site that has become yours, now. I have so many mixed emotions as I stand there. But this time, as my heart wept, but no tears came, I was overcome with love. I am learning to live with you in my heart, in my every move, in my every step. You have taken up residence in my heart and I hold you there with the tenderness a new mother holds her newborn. I am learning to love you in a new way. It's not easy, it takes work, as I say, always. I do not know how to do this. It is foreign and unchartered and feels strange. But I am learning that I am not destined to see your physical form again, but to find the pleasures of the heart by knowing you in love.

I know that love will heal this broken heart, that I will summon all I can to move through grief and love again, and still....for you, for your sister, for your father, for Rex, for your aunts and uncles, cousins and friends, for MY friends, one of whom sits by her own son today as she finds out, medically speaking, if he will come through his coma to live out a life with her, or whether it is his time to spend his life in eternal peace. Allison, it's complex. I don't want to know this pain and I don't want anyone else to, either, but I have said before, to not love at all would be the crime, the shortcoming to life. How I would have missed out on knowing you, being your mother, being guided by your own words and the life you led, the dignity in which you faced trial after trial, the smile that penetrates my soul, and the souls of so many, the impact and the footprints you have made on my heart. I would have missed it all had I not loved you at all.

My love has not stopped because you are gone, it has only deepened. I love you, Allison, in all your ways, your imperfections, yes you had them, don't we all, your beauty, and your radiance. My heart skips a beat as I know you live on with me, in the bosom of my soul, till we meet again.