June 2008 (cont.)

In the weeks and months that have followed, the tears have come again and again, sometimes at most inopportune moments.

The relief is gone. There remains only loss. The loss of my son. The loss of the partnered life I had worked so hard to build.

But with the unfreezing also comes a healing. I know that even as I wish the awkward, unlovely, totally undignified, “sorry-for-myself” tears would stop. I know what I’m living is both a necessary and a profound journey.

So without any intention or plan of mine, the unfreezing—and the healing—make their way into my story.

That is the way, I suppose, of all stories. Certainly it is the way of all of mine.

It is a gift, I know, to be able to manufacture my living out of the deepest substance of my life.

It is a gift, though, that sometimes leaves me feeling quite naked.