Reminder vs. Remembrance

Holidays are a time of celebration.  For those who have lost loved ones they can also serve as times of remembrance and sorrow.    When that loved one has sat at the dinner table holidays past, even just one time, there may smiles and stories to tell.  In my case, neither one of my sons has experienced a holiday.  I have never purchased a little suit or even a vest, never used a dab of gel to smooth an errant cowlick and never gazed across the table into the eyes of my sons.  My grandmother died just a little over a month after Wyatt died and every holiday celebrated at my grandfather's since her chair sits painfully empty, a reminder of her absence - and of her presence for so many years.

I don't have that reminder.  There is no physical evidence aside from the photographs hanging on my living room wall that my sons entered into this family.  We don't keep their things out in the open, they are too precious, too cherished and sometimes just too sad to see all that often.  

So I sit in silence during these holidays, smiling and enjoying the celebrations while silently aching for two little boys who will never come home.  I remember my sons instead of trying to find a way to remind others that they are gone.  I don't think any forced reminders of their absence would make me feel better anyway.  I am too scared to know why others don't acknowledge it and any words uttered in response just wouldn't seem genuine. I liken it to the kind of apology a child gives when her parent insists.  There is nothing that compares to someone's own remembrance of my children.  

I choose remembrance rather than reminders.  In my own way and on my own terms and I've learned not to seek validation in the words and actions of others.  I own this.