reclaimed; this box, my life, and George's death

Recently Leif and I were given an amazing hand-crafted box made from reclaimed wood made by our dear friend Josh.  It was made specifically for George and his initials are burned into the side- G.E.H.  It is a place for the few things in this world that are exclusively his; baby blankets knitted with love from grandmothers, ink prints of tiny feet, three photographs of his little face.  We had no special place for these things. They were stashed in a cabinet that has since become his sister's wardrobe and in a plastic bin stuffed in our closet.  When we mentioned this to Josh he offered to make something special to house George's things.  Special is what it certainly turned out to be.

In the days since it has been in our home I have traced the outline of his initials a dozen times.  G.E.H.  A gift for my son.

I am so incredibly grateful for the box.  For Josh and for Kari.  For their living daughter Stella, and for the one I never met, Margot.  Rarely in life do you find friends such as these.  Rarely in life do meet people who are just so fucking cool.

For a long time after George died all I wanted to do was clothe myself in grief and live in the shadow of his death.  It was the only way I knew how to feel close to him.  I couldn't imagine ever finding, let alone admitting to finding, positive things in my life that came as a result from his death.  How could anything good come from something so terrible and tragic as bearing witness to the death of my son?  But there were positive things, even then.  In the saddest days there were seeds of beauty being sewn into my life solely because he had died.  Now I find myself collecting and cultivating those beautiful things in the hopes that they make his existence add up to more than the 292,320 minutes he lived inside of my womb and the mere 24 he lived outside.

Nineteen months later those seeds are blooming everywhere in my life.  The strength of my marriage.  The little girl Clio who just yesterday learned how to roll over.  The deep sense of empathy I have for others in the midst of tragedy.  The strength of character I now have.  The bonds of friendship I have developed with people like Josh and Kari.  This human, the one who now occupies this more wrinkled and faded skin, is a direct descendent of his life and death.  I am who I am because he was who he was.

I miss George every day.  His absence still hurts and I don't think that will ever completely go away.  His death was ugly but my life from his death is beautiful and for that I am grateful.