I am not brave

So many have said that I am brave. It isn't so. I am just a Mother who has lost her son too soon. I could say that it is worse because of his talent and potential, but that would be so wrong. There is no relative value to life. Everyone's life is precious and each loss leaves a hole in the universe. I am not brave. I am lost and feel beaten. There is nothing in the world that I ever cherished more than my children. There is no decision I ever made without considering what it would first do to my children, and yet I have failed. Failed to keep my son in this world as long as he deserved and to enjoy his own children. How adorable and talented would they be? I have his rocking chair from when he was small in my family room. He often reminded me that it was his, and when he had kids, he was going to take it. I wish that he had. I dreamed of helping him raise children that he would love and sing to and be silly with. I had hoped that starting something in his name would help me deal with his loss. Perhaps it is just too soon, because I don't feel that there is a way to deal with his being gone. If mothers feel bad when their child skins their knee, how am I to feel? Sean only ever wanted to play music and I knew there were dangers there; yet, he told me he had to. He had no choice. What choices did I make on his behalf that could have had a better outcome? If only I could do it over again. What would I change? I'd give my life for his. I told him I would. He told me I didn't understand his world, but I did. I have seen it all and wanted to let him think that the world was good if only you believed it. The alternative leads to a cynacism that I never wanted to adopt. Well, he was good to the world, but the world wasn't always good to him. Friends and doctors failed him. Maybe I failed him by teaching him to be good. He couldn't hurt anyone. He couldn't say no to anyone. He hated confrontation and was surrounded by it. How could I protect a soul who didn't want to get hurt or hurt others? It confused him. Maybe God knew that too many had taken and too few given. Maybe He knew that Sean couldn't bear the tough breaks that life dishes out. Maybe He just wanted him to come home. Whatever the reason, it isn't Sean who failed. It is the world who failed Sean, and I am right in the center of his world. Maybe tomorrow when we see someone so fragile and kind, we will honor him and refuse to help him hurt himself. We will do as he did and put others first. We will take him home so his family knows he needs help before it is too late. We will teach our children that life is not always kind, but that lack of kindness is not always deserved. I always told Sean that he could do anything, and for the most part he did. It's what I didn't tell him that haunts me now. He always said I hated the dark side of life and I do. I try to protect myself from it and shelter my children. Isn't that what mothers are supposed to do? I don't know anymore. I just know that I loved Sean as much as anything on this earth and I do not know how a mother cannot be but ashamed to have lost her child. The guilt is real. The longing to redo something to change the outcome is excrutiating. I always told Sean that I didn't care if he were famous, only that he was a good person. He was a good person and of that I am proud. If there are those who bear some guilt along with me for his parting then I am sorry for you, for there is no just cause for hurting Sean, and every reason to have helped him.I am not brave. Only a mother with other children still left in this world. I have yet to reconcile my despair with a need to make the world safer for the Seans of this world. I have yet to comprehend that he is gone, never to return. I think of him as being on a tour. I have yet to even look at his clothes or things in his room or the garage. There is so much I have saved to give him. What do I do with it now? No, I am not brave. Just human and trying to determine why him? why me? I write because I have no other means to express my feelings to the world. My children and husband are as sad as I; how can I burden them? I will try to face tomorrow with new found resolve. With some sort of understanding. At least with a face that will fool the world, for I am not brave, I am broken.