Four Years Missing Him

 

I need for him to still carry weight four years after he left this earth. I long to look at him, to hold something tangible of him in my hands. I thought maybe I could post a picture of him, but they are too painful, too sensational. So I took out my camera and examined the evidence of his coming and going. This is a document of missing him

The pot I bought in art school at a ceramic sale, that we carried his ashes to the ocean in.

The bag that they gave us his ashes in.

I wished later that I would have kept one bit of his bone. A few months after Joshua died, David found this shell at the beach where we let go his ashes. It reminded me of the bits of bone and ash they gave us in the bag and so I kept it.

His hair.

His hospital bracelet.

His feet.

The twelve rocks I picked up when I last walked with him full inside of me. Twelve rocks that I gathered on the journey, unknowing of what lay ahead. Twelve rocks that I place to remember the good God has done, just like Joshua did in that ancient book.

 

Joshua Dash McKeeman exists.

He was born on October 30th at 11:50pm.

He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 22 in long.

He wasn’t breathing when he was born, and I think a lot about that short time with his body here on earth.

Last week my friend’s mom told me to “not have any bad imaginations.” I was about to drive down a mountain, which embarrassingly enough, I was terrified to do. But I kept my eyes fixed on the white line beside me and my husband’s tail lights in front of me, and I made it to the bottom safe and sound and better for it.

I have “bad imaginations” about the night we lost Joshua all the time. The problem is those bad imaginations are true. He was born ten minutes before Halloween, and the nurse who held me down while I birthed him was dressed as Hannah Montana. His hands were cold and his lips were bruised. I could not see his eyes, but his nose was the cutest one I have ever seen. His forehead was soft when I kissed it and his fingers kept flicking against mine.

Still there is a deeper truth and that is him strong and whole, running deeper in and further up, alive as our Maker meant us to be. We are better for having him, better even for losing him. We have woken up to this great drama God is writing and been blessed since with a blond baby to soothe our aching hearts.

It is four years of missing him. The dreams started a few days ago. Asleep, I would find myself deaf or blind, without an arm, or missing a leg. I am sure there are professionals that could tell me what these dreams mean, but I do not need them. I know. He is absent, as clearly felt each day as if I were missing a limb. I’m not saying those losses are the same, but in a way I wish they were. Somewhere deep inside wishes his absence could be seen clearly every moment as if a part of my body were gone, too awkward to speak of like a missing eye or mangled fingers. And this need grows greater as the day I lost him draws near again. At first four years ago, I was caught up in shock, grief and survival. Then I felt too imperfect a mother to mourn a child lost, ungrateful if I didn’t just focus on the three I had before me.

But fours years has given space to just miss him and that feels like a safe place to sink into. The more I rest in that empty space he left, the more “bad imaginations” cease. I don’t have to remember, question and remain in all that surrounded losing him. I can exist in that space where he does not. An empty place here on earth, part of my body missing, an ache in my heart that will only be healed after this life. This writing is a scar, bared for all to see.

He existed here on earth, kicking and dancing inside of me. I do not mourn for his life. It is already more rich and full than mine in the presence of His maker, but

I can just miss him, and that is enough.