"What's bothering you?" Norman asked as I was clearing the breakfast dishes. "What do you think!" I snapped, annoyed at him for asking. I'd been grumpy for days; snapping at him and the kids and being rough with our pets.

"Ethan?" He asked quietly, rubbing my shoulder. I don't say anything because there is nothing left to say that we have not already said. My son has been dead for four years, four unimaginable years. The memories of those last two idyllic
weeks before his death haunt me, tease me with the joy of earlier days and times.

Visions flash through my head, a virtual slide show of what to me is now the crowning glory of our time together. Visions of wet boys in the sprinkler on a hot August afternoon; sliding down the dry slickery grass on the hill by the bike path; kids squealing, picking grass from their hair and clothes. Faster now, flashes of sleeping boys, boys hiding under beds, eagerly waiting for mommy to "find" them; flashes of clean faces and fresh-brushed teeth waiting for books to be read and pillows to be plumped. Sounds surround me; little boys whispering in the dark when they should be asleep; a squealing and giggling Ethan shouting "Maaannnn" for "Superman" as he flew off the couch onto pillows laid on the floor to catch him.

Uglier visions come; I push them back, hard, locking them behind the door of my mind; the door is bulging though, the memories and pain desparately trying to fight their way into my consciousness where they can hurt me, agonize me, remind me over and over of the monumental loss of my son.

Tears well, and I fight them back as Norman squeezes my shoulder yet again. Walking outside for some air, I see the flowers I planted for Ethan after he died. A small memorial of flowers he will never smell and rocks he will never touch. He loved the textures of rocks; grainy and rough, smooth and cool. He would collect rocks and rub them, tumbling them into his lap in a joyous cascade of textures and sensation. He loved this new house and all its rocks and flowers and new wonders.

Now I wake each morning to the knowledge that my child is still dead; that each and every morning the rest of my life he will still be dead, and there is nothing I can do to change that. Those last two weeks were the jewels in our crown. A new house, a new baby soon to be born, wonderful family and surroundings, all blasted away in a few hours of sickness and pain, never to return to the golden moments now idolized in my memory.

"Why you crying, Momma?" Evan asks, concerned. "Just a sad day today, honey," I reply, smiling, wiping tears, attempting to hide my gasping pain from my son. He understands though, a bit: this son who lost his brother in an eyeblink, whose world too was shattered one day in September. Evan smile and hugs me, and I hold him tight, desperately praying to any God who will listen not to take my surviving children away. Praying that their lives will be full and good, andthat they will live those days well and long without ever having to know the pain of losing their child.

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