Hi honey,
A friend in New York who lost her husband a few months before you died asked me to read her anniversary letter to her husband, George. That woke me up to the fact that I have not yet written a letter to you! And the anniversary of your first year in heaven is next week...so here's Mom. I haven't written much of anything in the last year, and you know how out of character that is. I have written tons, just not to you. Not because you are not in my thoughts every waking minute of the day (and many of my sleeping minutes)—I am just at a loss as to what to say. Or what I can say without disintegrating into a puddle in the study! Ardath Smith is my Spiritual Director and has helped guide me down the Grieving Path. When I told her I couldn't find words to talk to God after you left, she suggested a course of action: Say what you can. My prayers were fairly short for some time! So I think I will follow that advice in talking to you, dear son. I miss you. I miss your voice. I miss your smile and your laughter. I miss your music. I pray that I will someday be able to listen to some of your music or hear your voice on a tape or video--I can't bear that pain yet. I can look at photo after photo of my handsome boy...but I can't hear him. What is that about? I need to hear you, Todd. I believe that I will have broken a barrier of some sort when I can listen. Perhaps my own song will return when I can listen to yours? We were born for music, son. My heart—my world—is too quiet these days. I am asking the Lord to bring back the music.
Well, that's enough for today, sweetheart. I will sign off with prose by Edna St. Vincent Millay that is imprinted in my memory: "Where you used ot be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling into at night." Todd, I will always love you. Dear friends—yours and mine—are helping fill the hole. And the Psalmist expresses what is true for me after a year without you: "I will not die, but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done." Goodnight, sweetest of all boys...Mom