I'm at a loss for words because I'm stumbling through each day. I know life - and me - as I knew them - are gone and I continue each day trying to adjust -- I know there is no "healing" and there is no "closure" - two words I detest!! Adjustment to the incredible void is all there is to look forward to. This does not lessen Steven's or Stuart's (or Brian's or Kyle's) importance --- I feel I have lost my right arm but still have my left arm and two legs! I will never again hear Stafford's voice, laughter or opinions nor will I again experience his "electricity!" There can never be anyone or anything to replace those things that were unique to him! Loosing a child is beyond words -- and especially one so in touch with life as Stafford was!

Losing a mate at a young age is beyond description as well -- I lived the heartache with my girlfriend in Tahoe who was left with 2 little boys. She did not recover --- She drank herself into a coma and passed on. I well remember loosing Tom - Steven's Dad - (albeit it was through divorce) and it took me 13 years to get over that loss! I know what it is to lose the person you completely love --

I have come to the realization that I do not want to let go of the heartache, the sorrow or the searing pain of loss because if I do, I feel I am lessening Stafford's importance and he doesn't deserve to be an occasional memory!  But I do know that there will be a time when he will let me know that it's okay to adjust and try to live what life I have left. I have explicit faith and trust in him to give me something to go on - when the time is appropriate. I merely wait . . . .

I wait for a time when something helps me to incorporate him into my life so as to help me move forward in a more positive light. He will always be beside me and  will continue to speak to me in subtle ways. He wants all of us to be happy and he will do all that he can to facilitate our peace and serenity. These things I feel and know and have learned from my brothers, my father and my grandmother after they moved on to that higher and better place. They have never deserted me and I know that Stafford will do nothing less!

Brian and Kyle are incredible lights in my life, and they make me giggle with their antics and stories. But, underneath the thin "onion skin layer" that covers my pain of loss, there is never a moment that I am not achingly missing Stafford. I struggle to keep a positive and lighthearted persona for the little ones but there are times when it is extremely difficult to "paste a smile on my face!"

I am having to regroup and redefine the altered me -- and I do not recognize too many similarities from the "old me!" Strange thing is, I find that "much" doesn't matter anymore! Whatever I become is whatever I become!  I have lived a full life and have been blessed in numerous ways!  For now, I merely wait........................