Letter to a fellow mommy

I wrote this letter to a woman who is a friend-but not a close friend. Last fall her son completely unexpectedly died in the middle of the night. It was tragic. It hit home even more so in that our sons were the same age and carried the same diagnosis. I went to the funeral along with hundreds of others. I sobbed. But I held off on contacting her until now. Today it seemed right. I remember when my 20-something year old friend lost her Mom. I learned from her that the pain goes on long after the funeral and all of the follow-up calls and meals have occurred. As I was feeling over-whelmed by all the to-dos, forgot-to-dos, wish-I-hads this was very cathartic.  People, family, friends, love. That is what matters. I refer to her son as "Elvis" in copy of the letter. Thanks Elvis-you helped me today.




Hi-

You pop onto my mind fairly frequently and I thought I'd write. I can only imagine that decades and yet only seconds have gone by since you lost your guy.

And I know all the very many people who love your family were probably most present initially. So here I am now.

Every so often I see a boy that looks like Elvis and it catches my breath. Then I think how that must happen to you constantly.

He was a model for me when I have talked to Aj that he has autism/PDD (what the fuckk ever). Initially I couldn't use the word "autism" because to him that was how I had talked about my friend's kids who had difficulties and that was why-for example our little buddies who are non-verbal or with limited language.

He was then put off that something that described them could describe him. So I told him, "Well-you know who else has autism? Elvis does". 

So thanks to Elvis for being such a lovely model. Aj then referred to him as, "My friend Elvis who has a-little-bit-of-autism." 

We lost our dear 13 year old lab last June. Aj asked me once if I thought Elvis was playing with Sierra in heaven. I told I thought yes he was.That I think Elvis really liked dogs and now Sierra has someone to play fetch with.

So I cried when I wrote this. And I delayed writing it because I thought it would make you cry, too. But I decided you probably already cry. 

And I wanted you to know that there is still a lot of love out there for you and Elvis and your family.

be well