Tag: Auburn

A grey world

Katherine5 Comments

If you are reading this thinking it will be a book review, then you may be disappointed.  I have not read Fifty Shades of Grey and don’t plan to. This post is about how my life feels after losing my son who was only 22.  
The sky is blue, I know this.  The sun is bright.  I know this also.  There was a ‘blue moon’ on August 31, which was a beautiful sight.  Fall is upon us, and football has started.  I wore my orange and blue for Auburn University’s first football game of the 2012 season.  But it all looks grey to me.  The world is less bright, less colorful, less alive without my son.  I feel grey.  I see grey.   There is a grey mist over the beauty of this world, or maybe its just a mist of tears.  Something inside me has died with my son. Some part of me is gone, gone forever.  My son brought life and joy to my world.  That is not to say he was perfect or that everything always was easy.  But his love for me and mine for him was boundless.
Today, it has actually been grey except for a few minutes in the early evening, when the sky was blue and I could see the beginning of sunset.  I knew God was showing me the promise of tomorrow, the promise of healing and peace, in his time, not mine.  The rest of the day it rained.  We need rain as much as the rest of the country, but today the rain echoed and amplified my grey mood.  Thunder is rolling, rain is falling, and the darkness of night has descended.   Another night to be endured, with dreams that make me toss and turn and to awaken in the morning tired and listless.
My hope is that slowly the grey will fade and that I will be able to see the colors of this world.  I am reminded of a movie I watched years ago, I can’t remember the title now, but everything was black and white until slowly, one by one, people began to live and there was color in their lives.

The Last Semester

KatherineLeave a comment

     Today my son starts his last semester at Auburn University.  He will be the third generation in my family to graduate from Auburn.  It seems that just yesterday he was a little boy getting on the bus for the first day of kindergarten.
     My son is the most important person in my life.  I’ve worked hard to encourage him to be independent.  And he is, except when it comes to Mom’s money. I have struggled to pay for his college education and expenses.  Now, don’t get outraged…he has loans and has worked.  But, I have covered the rest of his expenses. I did this out of choice, not obligation.
     I feel like I am getting a huge raise come December.  I also feel like I’m losing something, but I’m not sure what it is I’m losing.  I’ve figured out that one thing that I’m afraid of losing is that close connection we have had all these years.  He will be on his own (he would say he’s been on his own for 4 years, but I know he has been living in “college world”).  I’m not, nor ever have been, a ‘helicopter parent’.  If anything, I may have let him do too much on his own.  I also realize that having him in Auburn gave me the opportunity to drive down Highway 280 once a month for 4 years and visit.  I visited my son and his friends, but I also visited the college and town that still seems like home to me. Don says that I am a different person in Auburn, younger, happier, easier. He’s probably right.  I know that I will miss those monthly visits to rekindle my youth.
     College was a special time for me, as it is for many people.  I told him when he started that his job was to go to class and get his education, but that there was plenty of time for fun also.  I felt qualified to tell him this because I went to Auburn and then to law school and managed to balance studying and fun.  My four years at Auburn were some of the best years of my life.  I hope that his memories of Auburn will be just as happy and that he will be eager to go back and visit once he graduates.
War Eagle!