September 27,2006 - The last picture of Andrew and me taken on the last day I saw him -

The question has recently been raised as to why people blog. Everyone has his or her reasons. Personally I have four blogs and my reasons for each of them is unique to the subject matter. So I'll attempt to post an article on why I write The Zen.

I created The Zen of Paco out of a desperate need to write it all down. I had so much in my head and in my heart that I wanted to say. I desperately needed comfort and had read everything I could find on the subject of grief and grieving but nothing addressed my specific needs. I now realize that grieving is so personal that no one experience will ever be applicable to another person. That's just the way it is. I guess if I could give anyone any really valuable advice it would be to not look for any and don't take any. Just let it be what it is.

Oh I would add one more thing that I do believe is universal...I would say that its quite normal to be losing your mind. It is. How could you not lose your mind when you've lost someone you love. Its normal. It begins to change however. Notice I didn't say that it begins to get better - it doesn't -but you become familiar with its presence. You begin to fit it into your life so you can function again. And you don't like it, but for the first time in your life you realize that you really have no control. This thing has happened to you and that's it. - no room for negotiation.

I do believe I have railed as much against my own ego in accepting that I was powerless to influence this thing as I have railed against the unfairness and sorrow.

I also created this blog because I had so much I wanted to say to my son. So much I wanted him to know. As I look back from this very slight distance I feel confident that he knew the depth of my love and by belief in him. I feel sure he knew I revered him as a human being and that I recognised his gifts and talents....but I would give anything if I had said it a million times more.

He was so incredible. I wanted to share him with all of you and tell you stories about him and not let you see the tears rolling down my face when I did, and not see the pity in your eyes as you listened.

And finally it was important to me to draw a line in the sand. I am a woman of strong unshakable faith in my God and in his son Jesus. Death is not from God and it was important to me to let the devil know that I know exactly who to blame for all of this and I wasn't going to suffer quietly and question God. Instead I chose to use this blog as a way of documenting my faith for all to be witness to. Its all down in writing, nothing left to do but wait....

I'm very very sad these days. I don't mean to be, I try not to be. And most of the time I can out run it but I don't know...lately its been gaining ground.

I think its probably all the media coverage about Jett Travolta, I'm almost sure of it. The fact that it came on the heels of Christmas gave it an extra punch. I have felt so sorry for the Travolta's but if I'm truthful, I'd have to say that I still feel sorry-est for me.

I have this constant feeling that never ever leaves me. I wish I could explain it but I can't. The best I can do is to say that every single moment of every day since I got that most hated phone call, I have this peripheral feeling that there is something I have over looked, something I haven't discovered or worked out that would fix all of this.

Yes, its a crazy thought. I know it is. I know its totally ridicules, but the damn feeling is always, and I do mean always, there. Just lingering on the fringe of my every waking moment. Something I can do to make him come home.

Oh my dear friends, even as I write this I know how crazy it sounds. I really haven't lost my marbles, I promise. Its just that most of the time I control this irrational emotion but I have been very tired and feeling very overwhelmed lately and I maybe I don't have the strength to silence it right now.

One of the things that absolutely knocks the wind out of me is music. I listen to music at work and while I'm in the car or at home. As the saying goes, "Music, especially rock and roll, is the soundtrack of my life". Every once in a while I hear a song on the radio and I'm instantly transported back to the time when the song was popular and Andrew was a child running around the house, or a teenager running in and out of the house. Sometimes a newer song will play and I hear Andrew railing about how bad that song sucked and how "all new music was a sell out". At times I can see clearly in my mind Jamie taking a stand that she liked the song and Andrew arguing with her. Music is very important to me and Andrew inherited my love of it so its not surprising that it is also my undoing at times. Almost daily I'll be going along, doing my work, focused on what I'm doing and I'll hear the first few notes of an old familiar tune and tears flood my eyes.

Its during those moments that it seems so real that he is just slightly out of arms reach. Like he's just living in another town. Just a phone call away. Maybe I'll get an email from him today. I'm split minded in these moments. The real me knows he's gone but then there's this other me that thinks "He can't be, it feels to real." I've begun to believe that this is what people mean when they say that he will always be "with" me. He will, I think I could live to be a hundred and it will always fell like he just left a minute ago.

It's such a desperate mystery. How can someone be alive and talking one minute and gone the next. It's a double mystery to me since my heart attack. Andrew was alive and then he died and he never came back. I was alive and then I was dead for 45 minutes and then I came back. Why?

I think I really need to know why.

Its funny. I've never questioned God as to why Andrew died. I have always trusted him in that he knew more about the situation that I did and that his timing is perfect. But I am a little curious as to why I survived and what lesson I was supposed to learn from that because as of yet its not clear.

But the one thing I can't understand is why Andrew's death still feels both so painfully real and simultaneously surreal. Why am I still haunted by the feeling that there is something left to be done to fix it all? That's the "why" I need answered.