CHEEK TO CHEEK

That is how it should still be… your pudgy little cheek pressed up against mine; your wispy blonde hairs tickling my temple as I press in closer and closer to you. Some mornings when it’s extra hard to catch my breath, I even find myself taking the back of my hand and pressing it up against my own cheek.  If I close my eyes tight enough and inhale slowly, I can almost trick myself into believing that the warmth of my hand is the heat radiating from your perfectly rosy cheeks to mine. Then a tear. A tear leaks from my crinkled eyelids that are so firmly closed shut in concentration; it slowly travels down my face and separates my cheek from my own hand, like a knife slicing bread.  And just like that, my cheeks are bare; reality slapping them hard enough to experience “whiplash” for days.

The truth is, if memories were that easily ‘relived’, grief would not exist. I’ve come to learn that grief is all of the ‘unspent love’ that we still want to give. Grief; it can completely drown the heart and mind if the “floodgates” are never released, expelling the accumulation of “deep water”.  So, happy ‘3 months’ in heaven, my sweet Theodore. It’s the type of anniversary that I never imagined celebrating, but I will surely spend my ‘pent-up love’ for you by ‘giving-back’ to others every month in honor of your beautiful memory. I will continuously pour ‘unspent love’ from my “well of grief” until I can once again ‘love you’, cheek to cheek.

– Alexandria, praying Psalm 46:5
…join me by #FallingRightSideUp 

when life gets turned upside down