mysteryoriley

That’s what I thought of today, for most of the day.  Wow, I’m having a good day.  It sounds so trivial at this late hour when the day I just lived seems so far away.

March 19, 2009 – this is the eve of the anniversary of a day I’ll never forget as the day I knew what happened – but couldn’t prove.  Last year at this time, I was distraught, fretting the idea of my next breath – not because I didn’t want to draw it, but because every breath meant I would continue to live, feeling that interminable pain of losing Owen.  I’m still here, breathing.  I still feel that interminable pain of losing Owen, yet I have hope – that I’ll survive long enough to tell his stories.  I’ve told many, not all.  All of them can’t be told – because we, his family, simply don’t know all of them.  He was almost 21 when he died, so he had stories that were meant only for him, and we were sometimes background for his experiences.  This is the way of a parent, the way of an adult child.

I’m going to see a lecture tomorrow night, Endangered Languages, Lost Knowledge and the Future, sponsored by the Long Now Foundation.  I often wonder what happens to those languages that are gobbled up by time and technology.  I’m saddened when I hear of cultures that fall away, when they experience the Last-of-the-Mohicans-syndrome.  Owen loved that story, Last of the Mohicans – we watched the movie so many times, we knew the lines.  I wonder what of Owen’s language, that special message he had for those who would be left here after his life ended, will continue into the future.  What message did he share with others that lives in their hearts?  I know what lives in mine.

I have no song for tonight.  I have this – stories that live on in me, in Nat, in Dave, in Lea, in Michael, and the rest of our family.  As Owen once told me, “they’re not my stories, they’re not yours – they’re everyone’s.”  I look forward to a time when the stories live in a future that is beyond all of us.  Carry on.

~ by Linda on March 20, 2009.

Posted in beauty, blogging, brothers, child loss, grief, friends, Nat Riley, Owen Riley, Michael Douglas Riley, Linda Siniard, loss, love, children, death, family, friends, grief, learning, Life, missing persons, mothering, mystery, parenting, writing
Tags: child loss, grief, friends, Nat Riley, Owen Riley, Michael Douglas Riley, Linda Siniard, loss, love, David Tegnell, Emmitt Owen Riley, grief, Last of the Mohicans, Lea Kelley, Linda Siniard, Michael Riley, missing persons, music, mysterious deaths, Nat Riley, Owen Riley