Birthday letters to V from mom

In Memory of V

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Birthday letters to V from mom

Happy 18th Birthday!

Dearest V,

Happy 18th Birthday! I only wish that you were here celebrating it with us. Making us crazy by wanting to get out with your friends and party. Wanting to find a state where you could go drink legally. Wanting to get that place of your own. You were suppose to be going into the Air Force and Turkey and then Hawaii. Carla and girls galore. All the normal things an eigthteen year old wants, I wish you were here wanting and bugging us for it all. But you aren't and as much as I hope, pray and long to hold you in my arms again you aren't coming back, not in the way I want.

I know you are with me. Sometimes I feel the warmth of your arms surrounding me. Sometimes my pain won't let me and those are the hardest times. The times when my pain blocks the love we have for one another out. I can't help it. I promise I am trying to live by my words. It just doesn't always work. I will keep trying. I will.

Someone asked that question. You know the hypothetical one. "Would you trade your pain from the loss for never having had the love of your son, the time you had with him, those 17 years of life and all it held?" You know I wouldn't, not a second. If only I could have taken your pain and made you see that things would get better. But in honesty V, I don't know that it would have and I don't know that you ever would have gotten over the pains you suffered. I don't think I had that power and neither did you. I hate that I didn't have the power to make it better.

I had saved these words for the website you and I were to share from our different parts of the globe. I am giving them to you here and trying now to take them to heart myself. They are the words from a song. A song I know you'd have never listened to without grumbling but the words, they say so much of what I wanted and want for you.

I Hope You Dance......

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep the hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small, when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give fate the fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it or dance

I hope you dance
I hope you dance

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Livin' might mean takin' chances, but they're worth takin'
Lovin' might be a mistake, but it's worth makin'

Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out, remember
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance

I hope you dance
Time is a wheel in constant motion
I hope you dance
Always rolling us along
I hope you dance
Tell me who
I hope you dance
Wants to look back on their years and wonder
I hope you dance
Where those years have gone

I hope you still feel small, when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give fate the fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it or dance

Dance...
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
Time is a wheel in constant motion
I hope you dance
Always rolling us along
I hope you dance
Tell me who
I hope you dance
Wants to look back on their years and wonder
I hope you dance
Where those years have gone
Tell me who
Wants to look back on their years and wonder
Where those years have gone

I hope you dance V and I hope that all those that have been left with this hole in our hearts can dance. You took up a much bigger space than you ever realized. I think you do know now. It helps me to know you know the love that is here for you. You are in so many hearts and minds. I know that you are watching over us, loving us and protecting us, as only you can.

All my love,
forever your mom,
forever my son,
we are one,

Mom

Happy 19th Birthday...

Dearest Victor,

I miss you more than ever as I know you are aware. I also find more moments of peace now, more than I did last year at least. They are not plentiful but they are here briefly enough to give me the strength I need for the hours and days, weeks and months that go on without you. I miss you so much. I suppose I am getting used to the pain of living in this world without you. But, and it is an important but... I do not like it at all. There is no happiness to be found. Not the genuine happiness of seeing your smile and hearing your laughter. Not the happiness of making up after a argument and getting one of those glorious hugs. What I wouldn't give for a hug. This *since Victor died time* sucks. I long for *Victor* time.

There are moments when I can smile. There are seconds when I feel joy or gladness but happiness, it does not exist for me and I have come to know, it never will again. Only a child can cause that happiness to exist. I do understand more than ever, that you had to do what you had to do, to end your suffering and pain. I am grateful you are no longer feeling the pain. It must have been worse than any I have known to have taken you down that dark hall that you never returned from.

Oh Victor! I miss you with every ounce of my being. The physical pain is something I can't describe. How my arms ache to hold you. How my legs scream in agony to run faster to you. My heart screams and carries on, a moment by moment battle. Stop beating and be with him, keep beating and keep his memory alive. All I know is that I want you back here.
I want to be with you. I know you are with me but it isn't the same and getting used to the different existance is draining, so draining of all my energy. I am so so tried and long to hold you my son.

Your passing has taught me so much. Made me realize so much. I don't know who this new me will end up being. How I will turn out... but the change is impossible to overlook. I want to thank you Victor for standing by me. Holding me up and giving me strength to go on. There have been times I didn't want to... when I wished for release only to find it is not my time. Thank you Victor for being here with me, making me even more aware, it was your time. Whether I like it or not you came and you did what you had to do and you left. Thank you Victor for honoring me with 17 years of your life, for the happiness that only a child can bring to a parent. That gift of knowing happiness will forever stay in my heart.

Please Victor, do not be saddened by my grief. It is merely a reflection of the great love and connection we had when you were here. I can not help feeling the pain of the loss. Accepting that you had to go is a lesson I will spend my remaining days trying to accept. I may never. But I am trying. I will spend my life learning to live without you. I am not so fond of the world as I once was. I am trying to find joy in it. I will also try to honor you with living alive as you did and helping when I can. I love you Victor, my greatest teacher.

All my love,
forever your mom,
forever my son,
we are one,

Mom

Happy 20th Birthday!

Dearest V,

Happy Birthday my son and heart of my heart. I miss you! I suppose if you were here you would be away in some foreign country right now and we would be worried sick about your safety. Wondering what your days held and how you would be spending this day there...wherever there would be. Instead of that worry, instead of the fears of the unknown, I don't worry but feel a longing that a continent or country away can't compare with.

There's no phone to pick up and no telegraph to deliver my wishes to you today. They come from my heart and my head...my heart yearns and you feel it and my thoughts always, every moment, with you as I know you know them. I feel the ache for you and your hugs with every beat of this heart and I feel your strength in every thought, and your love with my every wish.

I have been, as this birthday approached, thinking back to the birth day. Oh the fear! The night before I was trying so hard to make those contractions come. Your father and I did everything possible from foods to exercises to whatever Doc Pasto thought could bring them on. Still nothing, not a contraction to be had as we watched the final episode of Mash, to the tossing and turning through the night, just knowing I was going to be a mom the very next day. I have to tell you V, I was absolutely petrified. However, the real chore of that day fell on your dad as he had to get me into the car. As strange and silly as it is to look back on I simply refused...I wasn't getting in the car, I wasn't going to a hospital of any kind, and I had changed my mind. No you. I wasn't going to be having a baby after-all. Don't ask me what I was thinking in my state of hysteria and yes, I think your dad thought I must be. Standing there and every mile to the hospital refusing to go through with becoming a mom that day. I just wasn't going to do it! I was serious too; no way was my baby being born in a hospital. Finally there, yes he managed to get me in the doors of the THAT place. 9 am and the hospital staff hooking me up to the external monitors and starting the petocin to help the labor contractions start and your dad...so trying to monitor them as they monitored me through this long day of radical contractions, that had him handling the nurses and calling Doc Pasto in. No drugs was my focus. Docs threats of c-sections at about 8 pm finally did it. No way was I being cut and all those drugs going into our baby. So I pushed and I pushed and your dad survived the onslaught of obscenities until finally I was wheeled to the delivery room and at 8:49 pm my world, your dad's world, the entire world as we knew it changed and I was holding, in only a few moments, the boy that changed my world. Your tiny self, laying still and sleeping, warm in my arms, where your so proud father had just placed you for the first time. You were breathing so sweetly. Whispering, "I love you", to this magnificent miracle in my arms. I can close my eyes and feel the weight of you then, feel your breaths and overwhelmed by the feeling of love. Love like I had never imagined existed and there you were bundled and wrapped up in my arms. That day and then the last day stay in my mind, so cold, your lifeless body laying there on that hospital gurney just pronounced dead from hanging and my body, wrapped tight around you and clutching you, rubbing your arms, rubbing your face, begging you to get warm, pleading with you to come back to make all this a nightmare that we would wake from...

I am learning slowly, sometimes very slowly, sometimes a few steps backwards and rethinking it again but still knowing that that last sentence above, as the last moments of your life, it is a sentence at the end, and your life was so much more, so many beautiful memories and so much love and fun and laughter between us. You are with me and I feel you, knowing you are here beside me, watching over me and loving me as you always did and I you......this is a forever love and a forever feeling that we were and are and will always be together. No matter the pains, the lessons, the horrors, it is the blessings, that matter. You are with me and my love is forever yours my son.

All my love,

Forever your mom

Forever my son

We are one

Mom

Happy 21st Birthday !!!

Dearest Victor,

Happy 21st Birthday! This is the big one. I can still remember you planning on your 21st. Most of it out drinking and partying with friends as I recall. You know what? You should be! This year is harder for me... lots of reasons but dammit you should be having your own rum and cokes with your friends, your dad and me. We shouldn't be drinking alone, raising our glasses to toast you in your absence. You should be here! This sucks! You being gone and us "celebrating" without you SUCKS!

Okay I've ranted... It's semi out of my system and I am taking a deep breath. Breathing... one breath, slowly, one at time till I see you again.

V, you give me strength to weather the weak days, the endless days, the days where the pain seems insurmountable. I wish you were here, I want you here and before I can even finish typing this sentence I realize how lucky I am that you are here. Here in the only way you can be, but here none the less. Your arms hold me every day, your smiles brighten every day, your love fills me up with warmth and love and I am lucky, one lucky mom to have a son so incredible. Thank you Victor.

V, you can expect to hear your name said out loud. So many are raising a glass and making a toast to you today.... on your 21st Birthday. Some started already, some will get to it later but so many know you, your friends, and some you have never met... you have simply touched them in some way since leaving us. Everyone standing with us in their own way, speaking Your name. You are remembered V.

Happy Birthday my love, my light, my precious son.

All my love,

Forever your mom
Forever my son
We are one

Mom

Happy 22nd Birthday

Dearest Victor,

22 years since I first held you in my arms. 4 years, 3 months, 12days and 3 hours and 45 minutes since I hugged you goodbye, not knowing that was the last hug, last touch, last "I love yous" we would speak to one another face to face. Course I don't keep track in such detail, I had to calculate all that out and I do say I love you, everyday, many times, but you know that.. As I feel your love, in so many ways. Life is going on and I try to live it, sometimes inspite of the grief and sometimes because of it.

I went out and got totally wasted the other night with Barb, no doubt in my mind, if you were here, you'd have been embarrased, but for some reason, since we don't much care what others think anymore, I like to think you were laughing your ass off right along with me. It was sweet release of pent up emotions and it was fun. As Barb and I sang our karoke tunes to you and Lisa all I could think of was you and Jim up there singing in the pub. Sweet memories, gifts you left for me. I have also become attached to another memory, you and me climbing the Tor. At night when my mind is merciless, that picture in my head, us climbing and laughing and finally sitting there on the grass, talking and looking over the countryside, those beautiful vivid thoughts, calm my mind as you walk me to sleep. Thank you Victor for all the years and all the love and all the strength you give me now.

I was sitting down to get a jump start on this letter the other day. Erased every effort and figured I would do as I always have since these letters began, at the last minute on the eve of your birthday... just letting whatever comes comes. Then your dad and I got a gift and I knew right away what belonged here, with my birthday letter, was the gift. It says all I could say and more as it is from another who speaks your name. Thank you Lake..... from me, Uncle Vic, and Victor, we are sure *w*

With all my love......my precious son,

Forever your mom
Forever my son
We are one...

Mom

Happy 23rd Birthday Victor

Dearest V,

Something is different this year. So many changes yes, but that is not it. Different place and people, that’s not it either. It is, I think that as much as I really hate to admit it, the calendar, that’s it. This last memorial of your suicide, five years. Maybe that seems like an arbitrary number but that IS what it is. It’s over five years and that very fact so obvious from one glance at a calendar is really hard. The realization, after what seems like so long. I still miss you so much and still with every breath. Not that I thought I wouldn’t, but I suppose I did wish that the longing would ease some, some more?

I wouldn’t give up one memory, not even the hard ones. I just wish so badly still that you were here and that this damn website wasn’t. Saying that, I have been blessed so, by so much since your death. So many wonderful people, dear friends I would have never known, experiences I might never have had, that although I would give them all up in a heartbeat and without a thought. I have to thank you for the gifts you have given me too. The precious friends and lessons learned, that would never have happened. Again, don’t mistake me… I would rather have you back here and be without all of it. Do these things come in exchange or as a result?

My days now

Opening my eyes I awake into another day without you. Conscious of that horrible fact even before my feet hit the floor. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Pouring a cup of coffee and lighting a cigarette I look up to see a calendar. The calendar used to be filled with appointments and activities that revolved around a life with you in it. It has a few things on it, but it is striking how many days are blank by comparison. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Feeling I should be used to that by now. I guess I am but…

Lighting the candle by your picture I am taken back in thought to when it was taken and I smile and then I curse that you are not here for another trip and more pictures. Your silhouette in the distance in the trees. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Turning on the TV to catch whatever morning news show and there is a Life cereal commercial. That picture with the cereal box is there. I smile so much at that memory.   Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Dressed and off to the office and my walk around, I see the newspaper on the ground and there you are delivering papers. The thought brings me such a smile. Almost every memory does. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Off to the store (a horrible experience still). So many things I just don’t want to buy, don’t want to eat and may never cook again. The reminders are endless and fill my thoughts as I walk the aisles. This is hard and if I linger too long I am sure to shed some tears in between the aisles. But so many smiles I get watching the other people there. The moms with young ones that remind me and the teens too and especially the ones that would be your age, dressing how you might dress, maybe grabbing something off a shelf right there….one of your favorites….a smile….a tear. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Okay, you know I never say never or forever but I just can’t imagine ever making French toast again. So damn silly. But that’s it, no French toast!   Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Dinners are so similar to what they were during the rushed times with you at home. No new recipes though… almost everything I cook I cooked for you and as much as I suppose I used to have a flare for trying new recipes, I don’t. But those things I make sometimes make me smile because they are so familiar. Maybe I will try a new recipe….maybe. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

TV in the evenings. Just shakes my head. One, I watch more than I think I have in years. Two, those damn commercials for shows you used watch. I start dreading trying to sleep about now, maybe as much as I look forward to sleep. There is hope that you will visit me there in my dreams. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

Music, music is like everything else now; it brings me smiles thinking about you liking it. You not liking a song, that makes me laugh. Then there are the tears as the words stir so many feelings of longing in me. Your silhouette in the distance, in the tree. Running, to reach you. Your body, hanging, hanging, hanging. Kneeling over your body, on the cold ground. The starkness of trees still so clear. Clutching your lifeless body, I still wish I hadn’t let go. I didn’t want to let go. You were so cold.

I still feel that cold.

Five years, it’s such a strange feeling Victor. The death visions still have a place with every breath. There was a time when the visions and the nightmares were so strong that all those other precious sweet memories fought to exist but now, the life memories are a part of every breath too. They are diamonds in my day. That last day isn’t bigger than them. It may always be with me, in my head, but so is all of your life.   Maybe five years does have an upside after all.

Happy Birthday V!!!

I love you as always precious son

Forever your mom
Forever my son
We are one

Mom

~Happy 24th Birthday Victor~

Dearest V,

It's been 7 years since we celebrated your birthday with you. I find, though I wish I could say it wasn't so, it just gets harder in so many ways, not easier. I guess the parts that ease some would be the initial shock and the visions so raw at one time, now manageable sometimes. But the longing and ache to hold you Victor, well the longer the road from the last hug... it's just harder with everyday that passes. I feel blessed to be able to remember that hug and how it felt. I pray I never loose the memory to age and time. It is as painful as it is my strength.

Your fathers’ recent gifts to me of his time and efforts and emotions to copy some of the video tapes from when you were young have given me such pleasure, smiles, laughs and yes some tears, but so many sights that stir magnificent memories. You playing soccer and Christmas's and snow and you and the dogs of course and the most recent few seconds as you were interviewed. They are all my favorites really but as it is the most recent video, the interview; it stirs the most wonderful feelings for me. It's you!

I have to apologize as I was writing this letter to you I kept reading back and found I was bitching about people, who haven't a clue. Not a letter I wanted to post here for you on your birthday so I saved it elsewhere and will share it only with you, another time. What I did find recently was the writing below. I don't know the author but it was one of those things you read and I just wanted to shout... "That's how I feel!" I hope what you see in it is what I saw in it, an explanation of sorts for why and how I could and will love you so, till my last breath. You are a part of me and so many. You are and always will be remembered and celebrated by me for the time you gave me and the lessons and love you brought to my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No truth if told to a father will ease the pain upon its telling. No philosophy can ease a mother’s grief. All explanations are empty in that pit of loneliness and no mysterious divine will make any sense, nor any master plan or hidden meaning that hides behind the death of innocents.

Grief is a gift from the gone. Its evidence of their life, how they lived and worked within us to make us capable of missing them. To feel the loss so deeply shows how worthwhile their life both was, and is. The pain isn't wasted, its tangible proof of how all of us connect.

To be grieving is to be valuing another. It is a lesson in the power of love. And who is teaching this lesson? The grieved of course. They have become our emotion, have had their remembered smile woven into the very way we think and feel. Our selves have been invaded by the life of one we loved, gently, like a voice half heard their spirit has become our own. By grieving you have been changed. You don't recover from grief, you emerge from it a different being, one who looks upon the world with altered eyes, one who has within a shard of the one you think is gone.

This is the truth behind our life, the living of it, how we mingle into one. No esoteric or cryptic riddle is buried in our pain save the greediness of self. It steals the pain for its own, robs it of its origin and claims it for itself. We are all collectors of pain, we cherish it as ours, sacred above all others.

When we lose one we love they haven't been woven out of the flow of life, they're here in us. Not in some metaphoric fashion, but simply as us, the way we live from that point on. Better beings for having been given the ability to love so deeply, it hurts us when we think its gone...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I do have are memories, memories that I remind me everyday of you.

All I know is that no matter the outcome, being your mom was and is the best part of my life. I hope that in every lifetime, I am blessed to be your mom. Even if the end were destined to be the same every time, I would do it without hesitation. Being your mom is the best! I love you Victor. And I pray everyday that you love yourself now.

Wishing forever that you were *here* to celebrate each and every birthday but know that I will always celebrate the day you were born.

With all my love, light and healing...

Forever your mom
Forever my son
We are one

Mom

~ Happy 25th Birthday V ~

Dearest Victor,

My birthday wish for you is - I wish you were alive!

After 7 years since your suicide and 8 years since the last birthday we were all together all I wish for still is that you were alive. Here, celebrating, being your wonderful, silly, sarcastic dry witted self. I wish and I wish and I wish with every breath I beg the life force that is to make this nightmare of a life with out you just that, a nightmare that I will wake up from.

My psyche is divided in two.

On one side I am miserable, hopelessly lonely and aching for you to walk through the door. I know, 7 freaking years and I am still as raw from the grief as I was in the beginning. I realize now! With every day that passes since you left, that this, is my life. Period! It’s not ever going to change because it can’t. There is never going to be a day that I wake up in this lifetime that you will be here. Never! I hate to say that, never, but I have to be realistic, I have to be sane, I have face the fact and the fact is, you are gone. I will never hug you again. You will never surprise me and sneak up on me. You are dead!

On the other side, I am finding it easier, and necessary, with every birthday to celebrate you and the time you shared. I make your angel food cake every year now. I watch some of the videos of birthdays and I smile and I actually laugh out loud. The funny things you did, the adorable looks on your face. The only *Victor* things you said. You lived life fuller than most adults I know and it’s taking me time but I am learning from you even now. You experienced more pain than I can bear to think about but you also experienced joy, excitement, thrills and you savored every one of your moments. You lived life out loud as they say.

So I am busy. Busy with work and busy will living (that’s that harder part). I even plan and calculate how to live better, how to make my remaining years easier and with some happiness as a part of them. Then there is, those other moments. I am in the fetal position on the floor, unable to breath as the pain is so fucking intense it makes me gasp trying to breathe and I realize that this is living, this is feeling it all, experiencing my life and all that is a part of it. As I live each day, each moment, the good or the painful, I thank you and I curse you and I love you.

I love you I love you I love you!

I have to go bake your cake now. I do it with tears in my eyes and a smile too. You are a part of everything I do and always will be. That is, you, give me strength. Thank you for every minute, every memory, every smile and every moment of laughter.

Okay, not just yet, I will get to the cake, I promise. Never again will I willing not make the effort, take the time, to bake that cake for you. Come to think of it, that valuable lesson also came from you. Show people you love them, show them you remember, show them you care. Do things to celebrate those you love and hold precious. Which brings me the long way around to telling you. Even though I know you know and likely had a hand in.

There are two wonderful things that have touched me deeply during this past year that I want you to know the depth that they touched me.

One, in November on the anniversary of you passing, Jim, the oh so eccentric British - Native American fan! On my trip to Glastonbury this last year he was there! Not only was he there he was working right next door to where I was staying. Not only was he there but he had only just returned after being away for a couple years. What an outrageous set of circumstances and a wonderful time talking about you with him. Thank you for that as only you could make that trip mean so much to me. I walked the Tor too and just walked the streets visiting every place you had visited and likely every pub too.

Two, in December, J became a dad! It floored me how much that event touched me. How wonderful it is, the sound of his voice when I talked to him. The joy mixed with overwhelming emotion. I am so thankful for your friend and that he shared his joy with me. Yes I was acutely aware of not ever being a grandmother BUT so blessed too, just to be able to feel a glimmer of it. The pictures are startling and of course precious. A beautiful angel, on earth. Thank you Victor!

Off to bake with my memories, tears and smiles.

With all my love, you are my light,

Forever your mom,
forever my son,
we are one.

Mom