Faithful Paradox

I can’t remember if Ezra liked Thanksgiving. While it doesn’t seem very significant, it made me cry several times last week. I know he loved to be with people. He loved food (he was the one who cleaned off his younger brothers’ plates if they didn’t finish their meals), so I imagine it’s safe to assume that he liked Thanksgiving since it encompassed two things he loved. Right now, however, I have no specific memories of him around Thanksgiving.

In some ways I’m not sure why it has rattled me as much as it has, but the truth is, I feel like a new color on the spectrum of grief began to shine last week when I couldn’t remember this detail. I’ve asked my boys if they remember whether or not he liked it. I’ve asked my husband if he remembers. None of us have specific memories with Ezra around Thanksgiving.

In many ways the sadness feels rather ironic. Grief is often hard around holidays because there is so much sadness that can come as I remember traditions and acutely feel the absence of Ezra. Simultaneously, I have no specific memory to recall with Ezra. I keep thinking “How can this holiday stir grief when he doesn’t even live in my memories of this holiday?” Yet therein lies the grief.

Being unable to remember feels like another layer of loss. I don’t know if the loss is that I can’t remember, or if it’s that I don’t have any memories with him, or if it’s that there’s a piece of my son I didn’t know and will never know – I’m not actually sure how to place my finger on what the loss actually is right now. What I do know, however, is that it has stirred new grief within me. It feels like a pocket that had not yet been opened on this journey of grief and now the edge has been peeled back and I am grieving another piece of loss; the loss of memories.

When memories are the only thing I have, the loss of those memories is a painful part of the journey because I am acutely aware that I will not be able to make new ones. The grief is that in not being able to remember, I feel like I am losing another piece of my son. The memories I have are precious and all that I have left and as those memories fade, so fades the last connection I have to him as well.

In many ways, forgetting is the paradox of healing on this journey of loss. I desperately want to remember my son; every smile, every inflection of his voice, every nuance that made him special and unique. I want to hold on to every memory I have. Yet healing also requires that I live life in the present moment, that I press into relationships now, that I allow my broken heart to mend. As I heal, new memories are made and as new memories are made, old ones fade. As old memories fade, I grieve. Yet as I grieve, I continue to heal. It’s a cycle that will likely remain at play for the rest of my life. It’s the paradox of healing as the memories fade.