Bye for now

I always end my calls to loved ones with ” bye for now”. It means that I will talk/ see you later. I never say goodbye.

My last call with Sam, just a couple of hours before he died, I said ” bye for now. I love you”.

If there is anything that has come out of losing him, it’s that it has put me in touch with my spirituality. I have never been religious: I tried when I was younger to find God through the Church, but it just never felt right: not for me anyway. I’ve never doubted that there was more, but I hadn’t really spent much time pondering it. I guess I never really had a reason to question it and to look deeper.

I was gifted with intuition. And empathy. Intuition I have never minded but the empathy not so much. It has made for a painful lifetime. My upbringing could have left me cold and embittered, but instead it has made me more aware of others suffering ; of others emotions. I’m not saying that I havnt hurt others: God knows I have and I live with guilt for those who I have wronged. In turn, I have also been wronged but inevitably, I have always forgiven : even those who I shouldn’t.

I have always felt the draw to something bigger than what we seem to be. I have felt guided during some of my hardest times and I feel blessed for it. But my darkest time is now, and in some ways, it feels that the Universe has gone silent on me. I know it hasn’t: it has always had my back but this time – how can it fix what is so wrong? How can it bring my son back to me? It can’t. At least- not in the way I want it to. There is no time travel. There is no back door. My son no longer walks this earth as we do, and yet: that’s what I want the Universe to do for me: I want them to put Sam back in his body so that I can see his kind eyes looking back at me ; hear his voice say ” I love ya ma”, and feels his big arms wrap me in the tight hugs he was so good at giving. But, the Universe says no. It’s just not possible. So, I continue to feel unheard in so many ways.

I know that they are listening though. I know that the Universe continues to guide me and I’m sure that it gets frustrated that I seem to be getting nowhere. I know Sam is out there and I know that he tries to let me hear him, or see him but my mind is just so full of noise that I can’t. My mind doesn’t work in images : I can’t picture things in my head, but rather I hear my own thoughts as words. I have been trying to silence the words in hopes that the images will come by attempting to meditate using binaural sound waves. I acquired a set of meditation beads yesterday in hopes that this will bring me closer still. Last week, as I drifted into sleep, I feel like I saw Sam’s face in my mind. It was fleeting : but there he was. An image which I’ve not been able to see before.

I used to say ” bye for now” because I thought it gave me a (false) sense of security . But I realize now: it was deeper than that. I don’t believe that there is a finality in goodbye anymore. We will all be together again. Our loved ones are just in the next room. And they are waiting for us. I will continue to say ” bye for now” but not with a false sense of security. I know that we will be together again soon.