From Your Son

"Hey Mom. I never told you this before, but...”

…But now is a great time for me to let you know that the hardest thing I ever had to do was say goodbye. Goodbye to all the firsts we never got to experience as mother and son. For 24 years I’ve thought of all these experiences like, learning to love your replacement the way I innately love you. A fierce love that a younger me never thought was possible to share with anyone who attempted to take on the role of my mom; but as the fates would allow Grandma did right by me in the only ways she knew. So now it’s time for me to be open with you and share some life changing things I never had the chance to share with you. Like the coming out of a very strong minded but outwardly sensitive 15 year old boy, who cried while reading books and wrote poetry that seemed extremely wise beyond his years. Grandma made it clear that although I liked to believe that my coming out wouldn’t have been an issue for you, it very well would have. I say to that, it’s okay and I’m okay, even if you would not have been okay in that moment. Time would have allowed us to grow from it because you would have witnessed how my coming out allowed me the chance to wholly come into the man I am today; of this I am certain.

At some points I would internalize a lot of my feelings towards losing you because although I am strong willed, a boy will always need his mother. With that internalization and being 15, I struggled with all the things I was not able to discuss with you. The things I couldn’t discuss with grandma as it just didn’t seem quite right; the fear of me saying things best shared between mother and son, like my first real love that would’ve fallen short with grandma as she just wasn’t as open as I know you would have been. That first love that I felt so fully, entering into it while throwing all caution to the wind. My heart so full that seeing the signs of the relationship coming to an end was invisible to me. Needing the warmth of my mother’s embrace to comfort me shortly after the breakup when the gut wrenching cries I let out each night made life seem unbearable. The need to hear that it would be okay even when nothing felt right, because this type of heartbreak was something I was not at all prepared for. The time it took to heal after that seemed long and dreary, I wonder if that time would’ve moved faster had I been able to share this experience with you. Just so many questions drawn up in my mind as I watched the experiences of my classmates and their mothers on Mother’s Day. Watching as mother’s hugged their sons for graduation and me sitting alone as my rebellious teenage years took on its own life and ultimately caused a 17 year old to be on his own.

It was shortly after graduation when It finally happened. The one pivotal moment of most teenage lives… the loss of my virginity. The sacred thing you try your hardest to hold on to even though most teenagers, myself included, have hormones on the rampage. I watched enough television to know how it worked, or at least to have an idea of how it worked. But what television doesn’t prepare you for is what I should’ve gotten from you. The knowledge of, although I lost an intimate part of me to an experience that was okay at best, that emptiness I felt afterward would pass. It would pass just like the feeling of abandonment I lived with for many years after you left. Or the uneasy feeling I have had to live with, knowing that my relationship with grandma would continue to be strained. Strained because I wasn’t able to fully understand that, yes a son lost his mother, but for grandma… A mother lost her daughter. A pain I hope to never have to experience.

But enough about the pain, and what could have been. Let me tell you the best thing about all of these trials, tribulations and moments missed. For all the thoughts of negativity and anguish I’ve had to deal with, my ability to persevere comes from you. It comes from the experience of having lost you at such a young age. It’s having your tough genetic makeup. It’s having the ability to take what was most difficult and think about all the ways you would have made me feel in these moments when I needed your comfort; and for when that just wasn’t enough, getting that comfort from grandma as she could always tell when something was wrong. It’s taken me quite some time to come to this realization but the truth, most certainly, is that even though you aren’t with me physically- me having the honor of being your son, of having known your love no matter how brief, is EXACTLY why I am a strong independent man. One of respect and self earned dignity, of pride and steadfast integrity. So thank you for allowing me the strength to write this for you today, to share with you and the world the inner secrets of your little boy. The man you have allowed to exist. This is because of having known you.

My mother. Who I love.

I am all of the best parts of you mom and for allowing me to live…

Thank you.