Keeping Him Alive

Originally posted by me as dakotaismyson March 10, 2020

First off (this disclaimer is mostly for my parents) I was in a very bad place emotionally yesterday and I think my blog may reflect that. It carried on to this morning but, after a solid 35 minute cry with ebbing tears on my way to work, it eased up.

My dad, at the memorial service, told us all to talk about Dakota… that talking about him keeps him alive in our minds and memories. That we need to share our love for my boy by talking about him. I say again, my Dad is right.

Bad days, dark places… those will likely be commonplace for me for some time and I dont think they will ever leave. I think that’s ok and expected. I’m going to have those and when I do, I have some solid support structures in my family relationships. But I talked about my son today…. nothing in depth, just a mention of his bud, Chewy and that I worry about Chewy and Mag almost as much as Jess. That led to something else mentioned about something he used to say. There was a pang of sorrow for my loss in my heart, but it was nice to talk about something he did that effects me even now.

Like Dad said, its keeping him present and part of us and our day to day lives.

I used to talk about things my kids would do or say all the time… still do with Jess stuff. It was nice to feel a tiny bit of that old sense of normalcy by talking about Dakota.

People don’t know how to handle me. That’s ok, because I dont know how to handle them, either. I know when I spoke about Dakota it created a sort of tense moment. A “whoa, how is she gonna react” situation. I can’t say that I can do that and not start crying (though i try really hard to not put work or random people in that circumstance).

He’s my boy. He’s part of me forever, part of who I am…

…and I sure do miss him.