I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear Josh,

After quite a long time, I looked through our text messages to each other. I think most days, there were easily at least 10 messages.

The days prior, there were exchanges about you asking to buy a book, which I of course permitted. On the last day, we were discussing hotels in Tokyo. It was going to be a stop over after Hokkaido and you were planning to meet Shalini for dinner. We were discussing the location of the hotel. It had to be close enough for you to travel to meet Shalini and you wanted it to be close to a mall so I could keep myself busy while you were away. I’m glad we were so close. I don’t think there are many mothers and sons who have such a relationship. The reality of how close we were and how those conversations wouldn’t happen again hit hard when I went to bed.

The dreams were vivid that night. It was your funeral. But it was not the funeral that actually happened. The people who were there were not the people who were actually there. I was trying to be strong even in my dreams.

I woke up very early from the dream/nightmare. As I was lying in bed, I was thinking of our text messages. How did we go from that text message exchange to your funeral less than 24 hours later? 16 months later, I still have moments of disbelief.

On a lighter note, I found a text message from you in those last weeks asking to buy a walk-up stairs for Cadbury for Christmas so he could get onto your bed easily. Somehow we didn’t get to buy it for him.

You will be happy to know that Shalini bought one for him late last year. He needed a lot of encouragement to use the stairs. But he’s pretty much mastered it now. You must have somehow put the idea in Shalini’s mind. We can only take comfort that you are still somehow talking to us.

Love Mum 

Ok I lie. Still not quite mastered…