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The impact of Mom's last sentence catches me off guard. Though I know that Mom takes Janice’s photo out, from time to time, and though, the daughter she’d lost has come up in our conversations more often than you might think, my comprehension of Mom’s sense of loss deepens, considerably, when, fifty years after burying her precious baby, I hear my mother admit to visualizing the woman that a three month old infant had not lived to become. Then, this thought comes to mind: I recall Will’s cousin, Betsy, telling me that from time to time, their Aunt Greta had mentioned the baby daughter, whom she’d lost to SIDS, just like Janet. In fact, when Aunt Greta’s daughter died, her son, Jimmy had been three and thus, he and I had been the same age when fate dealt similar tragedies to our families. Those similarities lead me to reconsider much of what developed between Jimmy and Aunt Greta, later in life. I mean, during his childhood and deep into middle age, Jimmy had been a sweet, docile guy, who’d never failed to do his mother’s biding. No one could fathom the fire and ice, which hit their relationship during the last years of Aunt Greta’s life. While sitting, swinging and enjoying these moments of intimacy, which flow freely between mom and me, I muse, sadly, over the fact that once the fabric of a close family begins to fray, intimacy may wain if too few comprehend the main reason for the strain ...
While sitting and swinging in synch with Mom, my mind flies back to how scared I was when Will and I were about to split and having never been on my own, I'd looked at Mom and said, "Our friendship has grown so close, I can't imagine losing you, ever... I remember Mom's reply, "Annie, you'll never lose me. When I'm not here, physically, I'll live inside your heart." As I'd been struggling with life's most painful lessons, concerning friendship and trust, Mom's words had soothed the anxiety, which caused my blood to race through my veins and pound through my head while tightened muscles constricted my ability to breathe. And as my spirit weighed heavy in my heart and my colon coiled itself into a knot, I couldn't bring myself to eat. Thankfully, once the healing process got underway, insight into trust redefined my sense of friendship, and With time, I set a high value upon positively focusedattitudes, which encourage wounded spirits to hearten, broken wings to mend and fears to bow to courage by injecting a mind, distraught, with hope for change... At this point I had reason to quest for insight into this dilemma: Why must those who work ceaselessly to save loved ones, who can't stop swimming in circles, face this classic (drastic) choice: Get dragged down by the dizzying nature of the undertow ... Or place the loved one on a life raft while learning to reset one's compass toward the shoreline where common sense, based in positively focused support and mental clarity wait to nurture an exhausted mind, body and spirit toward good health, once more? ...
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