Thirteen
I struggled to write this week. Usually I crave writing. I love the feeling of getting thoughts and emotions out of my head onto paper where I can organize them and make sense of them.
That was not the case this week. Every time I sat to write nothing flowed. I like to share my pain along with some encouragement. I don't Like leaving my hurt out there without wrapping it up in a nice bow of positivity.
That's just not going to happen this week, not this post.
Tomorrow Deral would have been thirteen if he was alive.
Thirteen!
I would have a teenager!
Deral was 11 and a half when he died. That's a long way away from thirteen. Surely, his interests would have changed by now. I wonder what he would like now. I wonder how much more like a man he would be now. I wonder if his voice would be changing. I wonder which girls he would like, what hobbies he would have. I just wonder who my kid would be.
I will never know what Deral would be like at thirteen, and honestly, that just really sucks.
I miss my son, my should-be-teenager.
We should be celebrating with him, instead we are running away again. We are headed to one of Deral's favorite places, desperately grasping for any sense of closeness.
Yet, I can't shake the knowledge that Deral probably wouldn't have the same favorites anymore and we won't ever know what his thirteen-year-old favorites would be.
We are just left with the 11 year old little boy favorites.
We are left with the reality that we are parents to a teenager, but we don't have the worries of normal parents in this season. The worst thing has already happened. There is no fear of his teen years, because he won't have them. There is no trying to "let go", because we were already forced to do it. There are no curfews to enforce, rules to modify, sex talks to give, lessons to teach. No boy/girl parties to worry about, driver's license to test for, no bullies at school or girls to break his heart. We don't get any of that.
I am a mother of a teenager, but I don't get to experience it.
My baby should be here to celebrate a huge milestone in his life, but he's not. He's not here. He's not thirteen. He is forever eleven.