Gorgeous June Day - Letter to Josh

It is my custom to visit Josh every weekend.   I have a box in my trunk complete with garden tools, scrub brush and paper towels.  I also have one of those collapsible chairs that came in handy when the kids were playing sports and bleachers were either non-existent or inadequate.

After doing my usual "chores" such as trimming the grass around his stone, scrubbing the dirt, (who knew how much collects around the letters each week?),  and the occasional bird junk off his marker, I set up the chair and prepare to write my weekly letter to him.   Here is today's letter.

Dear Josh,

I wish you were alive - especially today as it is the most beautiful June day!  The sky is blue - a light blue with swirls of very thin, wispy white clouds - not the puffy ones with edges and definition - but rather, like a very thin layer of frosting on a cake - so thin, the color of the cake shows through.  Or think of a blue canvas, with a very, very light white layer that will change the color of that blue to something lighter - a mixture of blue and white.  That is today's sky. 

The sun's rays feel good - my skin tingles as its temperature slowly rises.  The air is not humid or muggy but feels cool when a breeze kicks up.  This same breeze moves through the big tree nearby and when I look up, the individual leaves move back and forth as though waving "hello".  Sometime each leaf moves, other times, the whole branch moves up and down or side to side.  What if each leaf had its own note?  What a symphony that would be! 

Sometimes I come and it is too hot to sit in the sun.  Not today.  If I had a towel, I could lay down and fall asleep - right here, close to you.  Fall asleep while listening to the rustling leaves, sweet chimes and chirping birds with the sun's warmth like an invisible blanket. 

What I am saying is this: that it is a beautiful, no, a gorgeous June day and you should be here!  Alive!  To experience and enjoy it with me.  It is unfair that you are gone.  You could've survived - it wasn't that bad, was it?  You just hit a bad patch, okay, a horribly bad patch but we could've worked through it.  Couldn't we have?  

 Why didn't you give me a chance to help you?  Why didn't you give me a chance to prove how much I loved you?  What I would've done to ensure you lived?  To ensure that you would've chosen life?  I'm sorry you didn't let me.  No, I'm kind of mad you didn't let me.  Actually, sometimes I am really pissed that you did this to yourself, your family, your friends, and to me.   Why did you take that choice away?

And at the end of the day - at the very end of it all - you actually got your way.  Do you regret it?  Or not?  Is whatever you have now - no burdens, worries or cares - worth it? 

I don't know.   I wish you were here.  R.I.P.  

Love,  Mom