Come Back

Come back.

Come back so we can wash your hair. We’ll curl it just the way you liked it.

There’s a show on Netflix I think you’d like.

The deli in town has the best macaroni salad.

It’s been two years.

Two years since the messy ending.

You didn’t want to fight anymore. You didn’t want to battle with the demons that invaded your spirit so long ago. As we surrounded your bed – the first real mother-brother-sister-sister reunion in ten years – you explained you had no reason to live.

If I shut my eyes, now, I can see it all. The fluorescent lights. Your hands on the sheets.

In some ways, the same demons show up in him. My son Jack. Your grandson.

Severe anxiety. Obsessive compulsive disorder. Paranoia. All wrapped up into one diagnosis.

Autism.

The real worries in life, it seems, are things that never crossed your mind in the first place.

Now, there is a loosening of sorts. Grief’s edges are not as sharp.

Slowly, I am finding ways to draw you back into my peripheral.

I hear that Rick Astley song and I turn up the radio in the car.

I smell my neighbor’s lilacs and I smile.

You always felt everything too much.

Yet the front lawn was your masterpiece - where you coaxed earth’s watercolor to blossom.

Sarah ordered little glass stars to hold the petals from the yard. With sisterly affection, she handed them out during the memorial. Mine hangs from a small cabinet in my office. Sometimes it catches the morning light.

Jack stood close to John after the lunch. Tall man and his tall nephew. Side-by-side, they looked at pictures. Jack was always hungry to know you, even if he couldn’t say why.

Come back, if only for a few minutes.

Let us get your ending right, even if we can’t fix the middle.

I’ll show you the star.

Inside you’ll see the colors you made.

And you’ll know.

I remember you.

If you’d like a free digital copy of my new book, Raising a Whole Child, consider upgrading to paid. I’m sending the pdf this Friday!

When No One's Family Looks Like Yours