A raw nerve exposed - Grief and Loss observed

When Aben was born, I was a very lonely person. I'm not a person a lot of people get close to, I'm strange and I talk too much. I am very sensitive to the uneasiness people develop when we're talking and I go off on a tangent that makes zero sense to them. It's a part of my life, most people don't get me. And, as a young man, it hurt a lot to be unloved and unwanted.   But suddenly there was this wonderful, beautiful little boy who loved me without hesitation, and always wanted to be around me. And I was so happy every time he was with me. I can remember getting off of the bus from work and him running down the block with his arms wide open just waiting for me to catch him with his mom or grandma trailing behind. When I would drop him off at daycare before I went to work at Office Depot, we would wait for the 309 bus and I would put him up on my shoulders so he could make the 'air horn' sign at passing big rigs, and it thrilled him when they would honk back ...

The wake and funeral were some of the most surreal moments of my life. Everyone was very kind and they performed full military honors. While the casket was open, I was able to hold his hand, and I just thought about all the times he held my hand when he was little. Reaching out for daddy. And I held it every time. He had my hands. There were gloves on in his dress uniform, but the last time he was here I remember holding my hand up to his and thinking how much his hands were like mine. Only where I had stray freckles, he had the rich mocha tone of his mother's skin. So I held his hand one last time. I had a ring I wanted to give him at Christmas, so I put that in his pocket. I just kept thinking that if somehow, a resurrection is real and possible, that after he woke up, he would look in his pocket and see the ring there, and he would know that I put it there. He would know that dad was there at his last moments just as I was at his first.  I was the first person to carry Aben in t...