Genetics

I wonder what I would say to myself, now, if I could visit from the future. Send a missive. Would I say there’s hope here still, whatever life you think you will lead, is not so grim as the one you are imagining. Would I say, hold fast, be strong. Or would I give myself space to collapse, knowing it’s needed, knowing we can’t pick ourselves up if we don’t ever allow the fall. How do I explain the chances, wrap my mind around the probability of my perfect little boy being diagnosed with this, a condition so rare we had better odds to win the lottery, twice. In the space between this world and that I can see all our outcomes filed together and somehow I know that life and this life are the same, kin.

Here, I’m driving through the snow because I couldn’t stay home, the music up, screaming until my throat burns. I’m in the driveway and can’t bring myself to open the door, can’t take the ten steps to the house, turn the knob and enter the warmth because I can’t stop weeping and I don’t want to frighten my daughter with this sorrow I just can’t well up.

It’s not a death sentence, but it feels like one, as I grieve all the images I had made for him. Now, what the future holds is uncertain, hazy.

I know tomorrow I will get started on the work of making the best of it. Doing what we can. Giving him everything I can muster until I am inside out, living guts first. But, for now, I have to give myself permission to live in this space, on the floor, wet with tears, until I find the courage, or it finds me, to get back up. Keep going, one foot in front of the other, focus on just this next step, and maybe then another after that. And that. And then.