May 16th 1994

I called up Cathy to say hey!

Cathy says to me, "Well as long as you dont have that baby today I think we will all be alright."
"Haha, you think so? Well I guess thats too bad then, he was born just a few hours ago, now get your ass up here and look at him!"

He was born on May 16th. An odd Blessing on a day none of us wanted to remember. And strangely, it was also Susans birthday. We had all been thinking about it long before the thought of my son being born on that day. Susan had already made it clear she didnt want to celebrate it. We all agreed. Then here was this child, named for my friend, born a year to the day he died. It was too much to absorb. The mood in the hospital was definately surreal for all that knew me, knew where the little boy got his name, and the reflections on where we had come from just a year before.


And after that night, that my son was born, with a name and a birthday to honor my beloved friend. I never felt his presence again in my room. I never once slept with the lights on after that. I felt bad at the loss of him, but strangely, that he was still with me. Looking at me with the eyes of my own child.

I know this sounds wacky or loony, but thats exactly how it felt. And Steven, he is all the things I need. He is loving, and forgiving, and very affectionate. Nothing like me as a child, and nothing like his older brother Michael, who is a mirror of me as a child. He is quite, angelic. Its very very odd, but very very true. Indeed.

From that day on, I stopped believing that the End is the End to all and everything. I just dont know that I can trust that after the things I have seen. Im still very wary, but what a gift. To be given a child, and some kind of new inner peace about mortality, was an incredible thing to me at that time, and still is today.

I dont know how others feel, but I will feel to the day I die that Steve was there in those months and the full year following his death. Daring me as usual to believe or not believe. And leaving me all the clues and signs of why I should learn to stop thinking he was so... gone.

I try to remember that on the lonely or days of musings. Its not always easy, but the thought is ALWAYS there.

Angels. A feather pillow in a world full of brick walls.