One Year
by Denise Novaky on 06/19/13
Dear Nick, this is your mother speaking:
Somewhere between 8-9 pm this evening it will officially be one solid year since you have ascended into that realm about which I and others of flesh and bone know incredibly little. How is it that a full year after an event of such pain could fly away so quickly? One would think that the heartache that I feel everyday would make the time seem painstakingly slow. It didn't.
This year has shown me a great many things. Your friends are relentlessly loyal to your memory and hold you close to their hearts. The people of your town never stop giving support. The people of the Mt. Olive your father and I knew when we graduated Mt. Olive High School in 1976 remain our family. Your father, brother, and I are stronger than the pain that destiny gave us. We survived. We survived intact, a little bruised maybe, but intact. Our family, friends, and town supported us the nanosecond you ascended to that place where we will meet you again.
I thought today was going to be a horrible day of pain; I dreaded it like one feels the agony of an upcoming dental visit with no planned anesthetic. The day was not horrible. It was not painful. It was filled with love. I planted flowers around the tree; Mrs. Hildebrant added to those that I purchased at not cost. The town came, in ones and twos and threes.....family came. We told stories. We laughed. Jay painted a mural on an abandoned sign and, when he cleared away the brush below, we found rocks edging off a perfect garden. It was as if that garden was waiting all these years for the opportunity to grow flowers once again.
So, my wonderful Nick, after much contemplation and research there is one thing of which I am absolutely sure: Your flesh and blood is dead but somewhere, in some realm, you live. I am a scientist and yet I know you live. The data is scarce but, as one of my colleagues so aptly said, it would be a breach of the scientific method to ignore the sound data collected about the existence of the afterlife. And so, it is with a loud voice and wondrous burst of faith that I remind all those who love you:
I cannot say, and I will not say
That he is dead--. He is just away!
With a cheery smile, and a wave of the hand
He has wandered into an unknown land,
And left us dreaming how very fair
It needs must be, since he lingers there.
And you-- O you, who the wildest yearn
For his old-time step and the glad return--,
Think of him faring on, as dear
In the love of There as the love of Here;
And loyal still, as he gave the blows
Of his warrior-strength to his team's foes--.
Mild and gentle, as he was brave--,
When the sweetest love of his life he gave
To simple things--: Where the violets grew
Soft as his heart they were likened to,
The little brown bird that harshly chirped
Was as dear to him as the mocking-bird;
And he pitied as much as a man in pain
As a writhing honey-bee wet with rain--.
Think of him still as the same, I say:
He is not dead-- he is just away!
James Whitcomb Riley (wtih a couple of momma changes)
Forever and always,
the mother to Nick and Ben
