Eclipse.

We sat in a restaurant talking about tattoos. I realised that I'd really like a solar eclipse tattoo. I see lots of moon tattoos - a line of circles, each with the moon growing and shrinking...I've never seen anyone have a solar eclipse; a line of suns, the central one black, spiderweb lines of white, or just black, then the gold returns, increasing.

Eclipsed...at that moment, as I said it, I felt it.
The sun gone.
My son gone.
It was temporary. 
Only just temporary.
Death was that close, my stars fell, my heart stopped.
No sun...
No son.

I was silent.

A rush of noise, intrusive music that I didn't want to hear, too many people, too, too close. He stared ahead. He hears, he sees, he ignores.

His silence is louder than the end of the world, louder than any scream or cry. I hear and feel every word that has stabbed through my heart since May 3rd - when they decided to have sex.

Here is where secondary fear lives. My reaction to that physical rush of adrenaline, the iron grip, constriction and breathless. Falling into oblivion, fighting with myself, cardboard-empty-emotionless....I cannot allow...

Latter, I sit on the bed rocking backwards and forwards chanting; 

"I refuse. I refuse. This is not a tragedy. This is memory. I refuse to be bound by your rules. I can talk about it. It happened. We survived. We did well. It was us. We fought and fought for him. I refuse to hear your version of powerlessness and tragedy. You are wrong. You are wrong. You are so wrong. Why it hurts so much is because this isn't about our son and what happened. This is about me. This is us.."

In real anger now I say:

"Why not say well done'! Why not say, 'You were so brave, so strong!' Why the endless shame and guilt."?

End it, refuse it.

It isn't mine.

Sing it out!