Pass the ketchup....

Jordan got a new tattoo.....



I had an experience today that was so overwhelming it might be hard to explain, but I'll try!

Jordan was 2 years and 2 months old when he was snatched and abused by the monster. Elijah is 2 years and 2 months right now. It has occured to me that subconsciously I have been reliving the nightmare because Isaac is the same age that Dan was and Eli is the same age as Jordan. Babies both.
When I was dealing with the aftermath of what had happened to these little boys I was unable to think about anything but what to do at each given stage, living minute to minute, day to day.
Because time has passed and the boys are now both men, brilliant, funny, beautiful men I am able to see that the nightmare is over. That would be a good thing, except now my head can think of all the things it wasn't able to take in at the time. I also have H, who can, and does, take the strain when my head remembers and shuts me down, at the time I was a single mother looking after these hurt little people. I don't know if I would be going through what I am living now if I didn't have Seth, Isaac and Eli.
The sight of Eli running after his bath, Isaac in his innocence stripping off to play in the paddling pool...these things bring immediate and overwhelming flashbacks, vivid rememberances of how different things were when Dan and Jordan were these ages. Somehow I am now grieving for all the things I didn't have with my first 2 sons, all the innocence and the blissful ignorance that should be every child's and every mother's right.
Jordan wanted a lift today to the bank before it closed ( typical teenage emergency, he has had a whole week off work and had to get to the bank 30 minutes before it shut, on a friday, to change accounts) Ugh, mad hour where everyone is heading home in a town that is almost at a standstill by roadworks. We hit a particularly bad bit of traffic and I told J that it would be quicker for him if he got out and cut through the back streets to the bank and I could turn off and head home and avoid anymore traffic.
He did that and crossed in front of the car to get over the road, I leant out of my window and called him saying " Hey Jords! Mummy loves you!" he turned around, with a huge grin and there was this moment when, if the very heavens had parted and a ray of light had beamed down on him, he couldn't have looked more illuminated....I saw my boy for the first time, properly in 14 years, and right there, in the middle of town, stuck in traffic, I sobbed.
Jordan was so damaged by the monster, that in order to cope, to hear the details, help him through it, I must have somehow switched off. I have never stopped loving him, never in anyway discernable to him ( or even myself until I realised it today) turned away from him but I understood, when I saw him today that I have been unable to truly look at him since I learned what had happened. When a mother hears, in baby's words, the things I have heard, it must be a lifesaving mechanism to somehow detach. Today, who knows why, but the switch was turned back on, I saw my son, saw everything about him and was able to feel the depth of caring that has been denied me in order to remain sane.
On the drive home it was as if someone had turned on a video recorder and I heard and saw everything that little boy told me, every memory was there, every feeling and every wretched ounce of agony was there. By the time I got home I could scarcely breathe. I crept in the house and shut myself in my room and I howled. I let the hateful pain out and it was like a devil ripping it's way free.
When it was over, I knew that at last I had let that little boy go. He isn't here anymore, in his place is the most beautiful man....he is funny, unharmed, kind, loving and he is whole. No more that broken boy who took 7 months to smile, all gone the baby who had night terrors for nearly 2 years, no more tiny boy screaming " oh please get my daddy, please get my daddy." Goodbye sad little boy with his fears.
He is a strong and happy young man ready to face the world and be whoever he is meant to be.

I can look at him and soak in every detail of him, I can love him unreservedly without fear that I will let him down or be unable to function if the emotions take over.
I couldn't be more excited if he had just been born, because to me, he has been.
Another ghost laid to rest, another triumph in the battle against the demons.
In the slowest but most definate way I am crawling towards all the joy I am capable of.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel...please, please Lord, don't let it be a train.