The Jar Is Bigger

Yesterday was Michael's 20th birthday. I started to wonder if I'd be calling him Mike by now, if he would have gone to college like we would have insisted, met someone special, what mistakes he would have made, how many hearts he would have broken or if his would have been broken. What if... That's how I torture myself.

But this year was easier. The jar is definitely bigger now.

Let me explain.

I had a class last night, a training with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and how they help their victims. The advocate said that someone had once explained their grief to her using the following analogy. Grief is like a ball. For arguments sake, lets say it's a tennis ball and the life of the person experiencing that grief is the size of a small relish jar - grief fills the jar, the life, and there's no room to move, nowhere to escape the presence of the grief. As time wears on, as some level of healing begins to occur, the jar gets bigger. The grief never gets smaller because it represents the person who is gone and that's exactly how much space they took up. So now my jar, my life, is a five gallon water jug. I have space to live; I'm not constantly bumping up against my grief.

I thought that was a really great analogy. Years ago I thought my grief was going to be a raw, infected, wound that I would always have. Not so much.

My life is different than it might have been. I accept that and move on. It doesn't mean I love him any less.

Could, would, should, might, if....