For Him, I Want More

I broke down crying a few nights ago in my car. I was at a red stoplight.

Sawyer, my now 12-year-old was sitting next to me.

He was on his phone.

I had just picked him up from a late hockey practice.

The car was silent except for a song playing on the radio.

One that had been playing on repeat for close to ten minutes.

The song was by One Republic and titled, I Lived.

Hope when you take that jump
You don't fear the fall
Hope when the water rises
You built a wall
Hope when the crowd screams out
It's screaming your name
Hope if everybody runs
You choose to stay

Hope that you fall in love
And it hurts so bad
The only way you can know
You give it all you have
And I hope that you don't suffer
But take the pain
Hope when the moment comes you'll say

I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
Yeah, with every broken bone
I swear I lived

It’s one of my favorites.

As I listened to it initially, I was thinking about my friend Amanda’s daughter Monroe who just finished up radiation and chemo for a brain tumor.

I let the unfairness of what is happening to her wash over me.

A perfect little girl with an unbearable diagnosis.

I can’t make sense of it.

By the third or fourth time the song played, I was thinking of Cooper.

My sunshine boy who has a much different diagnosis.

One that is mysterious, challenging, confusing, and more.

One that seems to have us frozen in time. A teenage boy in love with Elmo and Dora and letters and numbers.

Cooper is the center of our universe. The nucleus of sorts. We orbit around him. Coming and going. The world turning. Him standing still.

There are things I am not supposed to think or feel or say.

At least that is what the internet tells me. And not always in the nicest ways. But I can’t help it, nor should I have too. I think. I feel. I say.