This is the second thing I wrote in my journal a few days ago.

On this day that would have been our sons birthday, I find that I cannot celebrate his life quite yet because I’m still grieving him. It’s only been twelve days since he left us and at times it still feels like he’s here.

A brief flash in the corner of the eye that looks like him. The simple glance to his bedroom dooras I did so often in his life. The empty spot were his car once sat. And for a moment before my mind has a chance to remind me that he’s never coming home again, everything seems normal, or at least it seems like what I once thought was normal.

Perhaps it’s a trick of the mind to take away the pain for a fleeting moment. I don’t know. I guess I’ll call them memories of a past I just can’t quite give up yet. A past that I long to forget while at the same time long to remember every detail of because right now the past was when I felt whole.

I think when we lose a loved one to suicide that we tend to want to live in that recent past where there was no pain of loss and yet in order to heal, we must find a way to look ahead to a future that might not hurt quite as much. We need to find that gem of life that’s glowing brightly if we could just see it.

And I will eventually find that gem because I want to look for it. I want to grab ahold of it and never let go! I know that the best way out of grief is to celebrate life and I know I will. I just need a little more time.

In the meantime I’ll continue on, living in the present and day by day I will grow stronger. Day by day I’ll honor my son by my actions, until that day that I can once again think of him in that fond way that I always did in life.

On this birthday I’ll console myself with the fact that Phil found peace in the only way he believed he could. On his next birthday when I have more strength, I will celebrate his life.

All I can say to him today is: Phil, you’ll always fill that warm place in my heart that I set aside for you so long ago.

Chuck