January 26, 2012 A Life Remembered

A few days ago I was substitute teaching for a music class when the middle school science teacher came in, asking if I could sub for him the next couple of days. "You're Adam's mother, aren't you?" He'd seen my last name and said he remembered Adam fondly from his time playing baseball with his own son.

As he told me how friendly Adam had been back then, what a good ball player, I was inwardly waiting for the inevitable "so sorry for your loss" but it didn't come. So I asked  how his son was doing. As a matter of fact, he'd just gotten married, was very happy.

Adam would be 27 as well, if he hadn't died following a car accident at the age of 16. Old enough to be married, raising his own little freckled and auburn-haired kids, playing catch in the front yard or throwing hoops in the driveway, spinning little girls around like airplanes just like he did his niece when she was a toddler.

Before he left, the teacher said, "He probably won't remember me, but if you think about it, tell Adam I said hello." He didn't know. So I told him, and he was, of course, sad to hear.

"Thank you, though!" I said. "It is so good to hear about Adam from other people."

Sometimes I wonder what he would be like today. Would he have fulfilled his dream of being a firefighter? I think so. As soon as he could talk, it's what he said he wanted to be when he grew up.

I so wish he had grown up, but I'm so thankful for the 16 wonderful years we had with him.

Yesterday, I stood before several science classes and promised an anecdote about their teacher. I told them about what he had said about Adam and encouraged them to be young men and women who would be remembered with such pleasant memories. Leave stories about their lives that would delight their parents one day to hear them.

To a student, the class transformed from boisterous, chatty middle schoolers to quiet, sympathetic ones. One  asked if I had a photo of Adam with me, and I promised to bring in the one that sits on the dashboard of my car always. So I can see him often.

For a few months following Adam's death, I could call his phone number (this was back when it was cool to have an 800 number) and hear his voice. Now, I must get out family videos to watch him and hear him with his brother and sisters. I don't do this often, but it is a treat when I do. I freely admit, it is a treat accompanied by an alcoholic beverage. 

If this bothers you, the thought of a mother sitting alone in a darkened room watching her son on the tv screen, crying and drinking a toast to his memory, please keep it to yourself. Unless of course you know what it is like to be Adam's mother for 16 years and then bury him. Otherwise, there's no frame of reference from which to comment. Even other grieving mothers know better than to say to one another, "I know what you're going through" because each loss is different, each acutely felt but each different.

The other evening I shared a girls' night out dinner with my sister-in-law and she happened to ask if it bothers me to hear the cousins talking about Adam. "Not at all!" I said. "I LOVE to hear about Adam, and to talk about him."

Painful? Of course. The only thing more painful would be if no one mentioned him. If no one remembered. His life was shorter than we would have hoped for, but we knew him. We enjoyed him. And we know that he will never be forgotten, because his was a life that is a pleasure to remember.

P.S. Another life that is a pleasure to look back at is that of my namesake niece Laura Ellen. Her birthday is today -- she's such a hard worker, such a loving mother. Although she lives several states away, I have so many happy memories of her life and wish her a very happy birthday today.